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.A, 






OLD SCHUYLKILL TALES 



OLD 

SCHUYLKILL 

TALES 



A HISTORY OF INTERESTING EVENTS, 

TRADITIONS AND ANECDOTES OF 

THE EARLY SETTLERS OF 

SCHUYLKILL COUNTY, 

PENNSYLVANIA 



BiY 



Mrs, Ella Zerbey Elliott 




1906 

POTTS VILLE, PENNSYLVANIA 

PUBLISHED BY THE 
AUTHOR 






LIBRARY Of CONGRESS 

Two Copies Received 

JAN 3 190r 

r\ Copjrl^ht Entry 

A KXc, NO. 



m 



COHY B. 



Copyright, 1906, 

BY 

Mrs. Ella Zerbey Elliott. 



PRESS OF 

George F. Lasher 
philadelphia 



V f3^3 



TO THE 

SCHUYLKILL COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY 
THIS WORK 

IS 

RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 

BY 

THE AUTHOR 



PREFACE 



HE ''Old Schuylkill Tales" may not claim the dignity 
of a history, yet the brief and impartial records of his- 
torical events are correct. Those who have read other 
early histories will find scant reference in them to the 
early incidents of the lives of the first settlers. The tales are 
true stories with, perhaps, in some cases, the substitution of 
fictitious names for those of the principal actors in them, that 
the, sometimes, super-sensitiveness of their descendants may be 
satisfied. Some few digi'cssions too, as part of the story-teller's 
art are pardonable, but the material has all been gathered by the 
compiler from the lips of the old settlers themselves or their 
descendants. It is with the view of perpetuating these stories 
as little pleasantries of the early days that the author presents 
them to the public. 

Those who have attempted to merge general historical facts 
with local incidents know what difficulty is encountered in pre- 
serving a consecutive chronological arrangement of the events. 
The consequent irrelevant lapses that will occur in the embodi- 
ment of such history and narratives, the latter of which, to as- 



PREFACE 

sume an attractive and readable form, must necessarily be 
dressed in a style resemblin,£;, more or less, fiction. It should, 
however, be borne in mind that truth is stranger than fiction 
and that the rich vein of folk lore in Schuylkill County has not 
yet been sounded to its depths, there are still rich treasures to 
unearth. 

The writer is indebted to Bayard Taylor's and Beidelman's 
Histories of Germany and the Pennsylvania Germans, the Penn- 
sylvania Archives and Eupp's History of Counties, for data ; to 
the Weekly Schuylkill Eepublican, C. D. Elliott publisher and 
founder, for some of the facts, and to many individuals who did 
all in their power to furnish the substance for the body of the 
work. With the hope that the tales will be received in the spirit 
for which they were intended, the author submits them to an 
indulgent and generous public. 

— E. Z. E. 






CONTENTS 



PART I. 



The Early Settlers — The Pennsylvania Germans — Where 
They Originated — Early History of Schuylkill County — 
Defense Against the Indians — Will Mark Historic Spots 
— Early Reminiscences — How "Old Dress" Scared the In- 
dians — Elizabeth's Mad Ride 



15-48 



PART II. 



Oldest Tow:ns of Schuylkill Couxty — Old Underground Pas- 
sage — Orwigsburg, Second Town in the County — Schuyl- 
kill County Polk-Lore — Prologue, Sixth and Seventh Books 
of Moses — The Huntsickers — Unwritten History of Orwigs- 
burg — Notable Citizens — The Local Military — Battalion 
Day at Orwigsburg — Reminiscence — The Somnambulists — 
Court House Removed — A Ghost Story — Dirt or Sourcrout 
— The Black Mooley Cow — "Wasser," the Farm Dog — 
The Long Swampers — The 'Squire and Katrina — Laid 
the Ghost — Death of German Peddler Avenged — Diedrich 
Knickerbocker Outdone 49-lOG 



CONTENTS 

PART III. 

History of Coal and Canal — History of Coal — The Formation 
of Coal — Points on Coal — Michael F, Maize — Queer Freak of 
Child — Wm. H. Lewis — Minersville as it Was — Minersville 
Stories, Some Folks Will Never Die — The Jolly Four — Not 
to Be Outdone— The Schuylkill Canal— The First Boat-Build- 
ers— Schuylkill Haven— Played Better Than Ole Bull— In- 
dian Stories — Early History of Pinegrove — A Pastor's Ad- 
vice — Early Educational Facilities — The Early Teachers- 
Peter F. Mudey — Quaker Meeting House — Henry C. Russel 
—Letter From Miss Allen 107-162 

PART IV. 

History of Pottsville — Pottsville as it Was — Site of Centre 
Street Twenty-five Dollars — Bear Story — On the Road to 
Heaven — A Negro Grafter — Had a Gift of Repartee — An- 
other Claim for Name, the Same, Yet Different^ — The First 
Railways — Story of Centre Street Fire — Old Hand Engine 
— Destructive Floods — Tumbling Run Dam Breaks — Mili- 
tary History — First Military Companies — Judge D. C. 
Henning — Reminiscent of the Women of Pottsville — When 
the Troops Returned — Sanitary and Christian Commissions 
— Not a Foot Washer — Colored Woman Buried in Baber 
Cemetery — The Presbyterian Chill — Before the War — 
Stickety Jimmy and Ellen 163-204 

PART V. 

Early Churches — History of Early Churches, Their Origin 
and Whereabouts — The Log School House — First Religious 
Service — Hymn Books in Clothes Basket — A Wild Turkey 
Story — St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church — Roman Cath- 
olic Clergyman a Good Financier — Other Early Churches — ■ 



CONTENTS 

St. John the Baptist Church — Old Records Difficult to Trans- 
late — Preached Against Vanities of Dress — The Old Town 
Hall — Charlemagne Tower — Social and Literary Advan- 
tages — Fortissimo vs. Pianissimo — Superstitions of Schuyl- 
kill County — Pow-ow-iug — L. C. Thompson 205-246 

PART VI. 

IXTERESTiNG LocAL Stories— The Underground Railway Station 
in Pottsville — The Underground Railway — Friend Gilling- 
ham of Pottsville — Aged Resident Preserves Secret — The 
Early Stage Coaches — Reminiscences of Old Settlers — The 
Norwegian Creek— Fought Reading Company — Stage Coach 
Days — The Mortimers Among Earliest Settlers — Old 
Time Scrappers — Thirty Thousand Copper Pennies— Cur- 
few Shall Not Ring To-night — Origin of Ghost Stories — In- 
dian Stories — The First Physicians — Old Historic Mansion 
— An Early Romance — Dinah and Vilkins — Record of Potts- 
ville Postmasters — Early Iron Works, Their Establish- 
ment — Recapitulatory and Retrospective 247-298 

PART VII. 

Other Tales — Hilda, A Mormon Bride and Mother (Chapters 
I, II, III, IV)— The History of a Newspaper Office Cat— 
Tiny Tim and Polly— The Dead Man's Foot (Chapters 
I, II, III) 299-344 




ILLUSTRATIONS 



Facing Page. 

View of Orwigshurg S3 ' 

Old Court House, Orwigsburg 67 

Coal Breaker 114 

View of Pottsville ^6? 

New Court House, Pottsville ^71 

Old Red Church 2U 



PART I 



THE EARLY SETTLERS 



PART I 



THE EARLY SETTLERS 



THE PENNSYLVANIA GERMANS 



Where They Originated. 




HE Pennsvlrania Germans whose ancestors were exiled 
from their homes in the beautiful valley of the Rhine 
and Neckar by furious religious and political persecu- 
tion are yet, after a lapse of many generations, bound 
by invisible ties to the land which has been consecrated and hal- 
lo^^■ed by the same blood which courses in their veins. 

The early history of Germany and the frequent quarrels 
between the Eomans and the German tribes is a familiar one. 
The Franks, Goths, Saxons and Alemanni finally became 
merged into one tribal relation and these occupied the lower 
course of the Shelt, the Emeuse and the Schwalm Rivers, west 
and in the lower Rhine region. 

The Palatinate was formerly an independent state of Ger- 
many, and consisted of two territorial divisions, the Upper or 
2 (17) 



18 ®lti ^c|)imlfetU Stales. 

the Bavarian Palatinate and the Lower or Rhine Palatinate. 
The story of the Rhine Pfalz is one of great interest. In that 
country dwelt the ancestors of the Pennsylvania Germans, two 
centuries before persecution drove them from it. Nature was 
lavish to that valley. For more than a thousand years the 
Rhine was the prize for which the Romans, Gauls, and Germans 
contended. There is no region of country on the globe that has 
witnessed so many bloody conflicts as the Palatinate on the 
Rhine. The Romans struggled for more than five centuries to 
subdue the various German tribes, only to leave them uncon- 
quered, and after the Romans withdrew the rich prize was 
coveted by European nations. The Germans of the Rhine 
provinces suffered from the Trench as late as the Franco-Ger- 
man war, and the crimes committed in the Palatinate in conse- 
quence of religious intolerance, fanaticism, and political perse- 
cution are unparalleled in the history of human savagery. 

For thirty years the Palatinate was frequently ravaged by 
contending armies and the country became the theatre of war 
and a continuous conflict followed until peace came at the end 
of the thirty years, and the Palatinates were saved to Germany, 
but at what a fearful cost. The people were no longer com- 
pelled to worship God at the point of the sword, but their perse- 
cutions were not yet to end. The w^orst cruelties were yet to be 
inflicted on Ihem. Passing over the period of religious persecu- 
tion which shows the chief reasons for the emigration of the 
Palatinates to America we come to the date that led up to the 
grand Exodus of German Palatinates to Pennsylvania. 

As early as 1614 three European travelers started' from a 
point on the Mohawk River not far from Albany, j^ew York, 



©ItJ Sd}U2lkiIl STaks. 19 



and proceeded up the Mohawk Valley about thirty miles, 
after which they came south to the Delaware River. Henry 
Hudson is belie\'ed to have been the first Avhite man that came 
within the present limits of Pennsylvania, which was ruled over 
by the Enp;lish. 

In 1681 the British government made a grant to William 
Penn which included the boundaries of Pennsylvania, and one 
of his first acts was a treaty with the Indians, whom he recog- 
nized as the rightful owners of the soil. Penn mad? three 
visits to the Palatinate in Germany, and being a proficient Ger- 
man scholar, spoke the German language and had no difficulty 
in inducing the Palatines to settle in his province in Pennsyl- 
vania. 

Many who had no money for their passage were carried by 
masters of vessels who depended upon them to work out the price 
of the passage in a term of years. This species of servitude 
had all the features of chattel slavery. The system of selling 
emigrants was vigorously protested against by the German 
Quakers or Mennonites. The German settlers occupied all the 
counties south ^nd east of the state along Chester and the lower 
end of Bucks county. 

iSTew York received a large German emigration in 1710. 
The Schoharie Settlers had internal difiiculties and many left 
N'ew York under the guidance of John Conrad Weiser and his 
son Conrad and settled in Pennsylvania. In 1739 Christopher 
Sauer began to publish a German newspaper at Germantown. 
Copies of it in existence now are considered invaluable as an 
encyclopedia of information. Tlie Germans tilled their land, and 
Sauer's paper taught them to believe that the English were 



20 ©Iti Srftuglfeill QTaks. 

seeking to put restrictions on them as great as those which they 
had borne in the old country, and the English feared that the 
Germans would make the province a German province. 

It was about 1754 when the largest influx of German im- 
migrants came to this section of country, in what is now Berks, 
Schuylkill, Dauphin and Lebanon counties. The early settlers 
of the lower part of Schuylkill County, then a part of Berks, 
were mainly from the Palatines or the next generation of those 
who came from there. When the first blood was shed at Lexing- 
ton, the Germans espoused the cause of the American patriots in 
behalf of freedom. In May, 1776, before the adoption of the 
Declaration of Independence, Pennsylvania reported that five 
full companies enlisted from the Germans for immediate service. 
Every officer of this battalion was a German. It took the field 
and rendered conspicuous service during the early part of the 
war. The German. Battalion participated in the battle at Tren- 
ton in 1776 and sustained AYashington at the ill-fated fields of 
Brandywine and Germantown and spent the terrible winter of 
1777-1778 with him at Valley Forge. The deeds and suffer- 
ings of this German Battalion are a proud memorial of the 
part the German soldiers took in the Revolutionary War. 

There is a belief among some people that the Hessian 
Mercenaries brought over by the British government to fight 
the Americans remained here after the war was over and that 
their descendants constitute a part of the element of Pennsyl- 
vania Germans in this section to-dsij. This is erroneous. 
These men were under contract to return after the war was over. 
A few perhaps remained and made good citizens, but there was 
an intense hatred in some localities against the so-called Hessian 



©Ill ScfniuUuU EaicQ. 21 



soldiers. Some of it still ling-ers with the present generation. 
It should be remembered, however, that the Hessians were 
forced into the British service by the poverty stricken German 
princes, who sold them to the British like so many slaves. 
Their service was not voluntary, ]\Iany of the Hessians de- 
serted in large numbers, and found refuge among the German 
colonists in Pennsylvania and ISTew York. Thirty dollars a 
head was offered in Europe by the British government for hire- 
ling soldiers to fight against the Americans, but the rulers of 
]lolland and Russia refused to entertain the proposition. 

The so-called "Pennsylvania Dutch" language is a mis- 
nomer; there is no such thing. The Dutch are designated in 
Germany as Hollandisch and their language is Holland Dutch. 
These people came from Holland immediate and settled mainly 
in New York. Unthinking people are apt to confuse the term 
German and Dutch. The ancestors of the Pennsylvania Ger- 
mans who came from the upper and lower Rhine regions spoke 
a dialect that is known as Pfalzisch and the people at the time 
of the great emigration from there were known as Garman 
Palatines. The dialect of the Pennsylvania Germans is an in- 
heritance from these ancestors and, barring its English infusion, 
is substantially the same as when first brought over. Pennsyl- 
vania German has deteriorated through borrowing from the 
English. It is now a mixture of bad German and worse 
English, but the Rhine Palatinate and Rhine Pfalzisch still re- 
main. The literature still in existence among local families, 
the German Bible, German prayer book and Hymnal in the 
central counties of Pennsylvania, a number of them in Schuyl- 
kill, show that the parent speech has not been forgotten. 



22 ©ItJ Scf)uslkill QTalcs. 



In the region in Switzerland embraced in the Canton of 
Gresous, the Pfalzisch dialect still exists that was used several 
centuries ago. The Pfalzisch dialect spread all over south Ger- 
many and the Pennsylvania German and the south German 
dialects agree in many particulars. No Schuylkill County de- 
scendants of German ancestry need be ashamed of the Pennsyl- 
vania German dialect. 



EARLY HISTORY OF SCHUYLKILL COUNTY 



Schuylkill County was formed by Act of Assembly, passed 
March 1, 1811, from portions of Berks, Lancaster and ISTorth- 
ampton Counties. In 1818 a small area was added from Colum- 
bia and Lehigh. The county has an area of 810 square miles, 
with an average length of 30 miles, and an average width of 24 
and a half miles. The county was named after the Schuylkill 
river. The word Schuylen is a Swedish one and means to 
hide. 

The tract on which Orwigsburg is located belonged to 
Lancaster county. In 1752 that part of the State was ceded 
to Berks County. Rev. Henry Melchior Muhlenberg narrates 
the history of the German captives, who were taken by the 
Indians during the years from 1755 to 1765. 

Johannes Hartmann lived in the forest, on a spot near 
where now^ stands St. Paul's Lutheran Church, Orwigsburg. The 
records of Zion's Kirche, (the ''Red Church") in West Bruns- 



©Iti Sc^uglktU (lales. 23 



wick township, one and a half miles southeast of Orwigsburg, 
tell of the firing in 1755 by the Indians of the first log church 
just completed bv the settlers; the massacreing of the people and 
the laying of their homes in ashes. Those who could escape — 
among them Henrich Adam Ketner and his wife Katharine, 
who came there in 1755, — fled across the Blue Mountains into 
Berks county; subsequently returning with others they built 
the church and re-established their homes afresh. It was at this 
date that a frightful massacre occurred at the site of what is 
now OrAvigsburg. 

Daniel Deibert, born in 1802, published an early historj^ of 
his forebears, who lived near the spot. TV^illiam Deibert came 
from Germany to Philadelphia early in the eighteenth century, 
when his son Wilhelm was three years old. The latter with 
his brother Michael, when they came to manhood's estate, left 
their parents in Bern township, Berks county and in the year 
1744 took up 300 acres of land in Manheim township, Schuylkill 
county, now knoAvn as the Peale and Filbert farms. Nearly at 
the same time, the Deibert narrative states, "a few years earlier 
than my grandfather settled here, another German family 
came from Europe, the head of which was Johannes Hartmann 
and settled vvhere Orwisburg now stands." Daniel Deibert's 
father, John, subsequently bought 144 acres of land in West 
Brunswick to\\Tiship, just below the old White Church, in the 
valley, which farm is still in the possession of the Deibert family 
and one of the most beautiful and prosperous in the county. 

Daniel Deibert tells how, when he was a child four or five 
years of age, his father and mother, while clearing the land, 
took the cradle and the three children with them and that he. 



24 ©It) Sdjuylkill QTalcs. 



tlie eldest, would keep the locusts and other insects from the 
baby in the cradle, while the elders worked. His grandfather, 
William, frequently told him stories of how the Indians mo- 
lested the early settlers. 

Christian Doibert a son, was married to Mary Elizabeth 
]\[iller, daughter of And^-ew and Elizabeth Miller, nee Stout, 
and was a sister of Hannah Miller, who married Andrew 
Schwalm. A subsequent chapter is devoted to the romantic 
courtship and "mad ride" of Elizabeth Stout, their mother, 
wife of Andrew Miller. Christian and Mary Elizabeth Deibert 
lived on the Deibert homestead near Orwigsburg for many 
years. 

The Hartmann family had two boys and two girls. They 
were a pious and religious family. One day in the fall of 1755 
the father and his eldest son were to finish their sowing. Mrs. 
Hartmann took their youngest son. Christian, to John Einscher's 
mill, near the P. & R. Raihvay and the Mine Hill Railway 
crossing, where Schuylkill Haven now stands, to have some grist 
done. When the father and the three children were eating 
their dinner a band of Indians, fifteen in number, headed by 
Hammaoslu (the tiger's claw) and Pottowasnos (the boat 
pusher) came and killed Hartmann and his eldest son, plundered 
the log house and set it on fire, carrying the two girls with 
them as victims into the forest. 

When ]\Irs. Hartman and her son returned from the mill 
they found their home and out-buildings burned to the ground. 
The charred bodies of Hartmann and his son and a dog were 
discovered among the ruins, where they had been thrown into 
the fire by the mad savages, who performed in ghoulish glee 



©Iti ^c])iiuHuU STales. 25 



llie funeral dance around the flaming pile; but of the girls there 
was no sign. 

They murdered the family of a man named Smith and took 
with them their little girl three years old. The girls were bare- 
foot and their feet became sore. The eldest of the Hartmann 
girls grew lame and became very sick when they tomahawked 
her. They ^^Tapped the feet of the two other girls with rags 
and took them to their camp in the forest. Some hunters found 
the body of the eldest girl and buried her. 

Several times, years after, children were reclaimed from 
the Indians. On such occasions Mrs. Hartman went to see 
whether she could hear of her daughter. Once she went as far 
as Pittsburg, but could hear nothing. Thus nine years passed 
aAvay when word came that a great many captive white children 
had been taken from the Indians, and were in charge of Col. 
Bouquette, at Carlisle. Mrs. Hartmann journeyed thither at 
once. The children spoke nothing but the Indian language 
and she did not recognize her child among them. Sad at heart 
she was about again to return home, when the Commander 
asked her if there was no hymn or lullaby which she 
remembered to have sung to her little girl during her in- 
fancy. 

After some hesitation the mother began to sing "Aliein 
imd doch nicht ganz allein bin ich," ("Alone and yet not all 
alone am I") when a grown up swarthy complexioned Indian 
girl broke out from among the ranks and fell on her neck and 
kissed her. What a joyful meeting that was. The captive 
Sauquehanna (the AYhite Lily), and with hei', Koloska (the 
short-legged Bear), Susan Smith and a sister of Martin Woerner, 



26 ©ItJ Sc^uglkill QTaks. 



who lived on a farm at what is now Landingville, all returned 
home with their friends. 

The mother's affection for her child, Regina, was returned 
at once by tlie freed captive, but it was not until Magdalena 
Hartmann had conveyed the exile to the brow of a hill, near 
which had stood their lowly home, that memory fully returned, 
and she exclaimed "washock!" "washock!" "The green tree," 
"the green tree;" her memory had returned and she gave one 
evidence after another of the awakened recollections of the 
past and her mother's teachings. 

John Finscher's mill, built in 1744. was burned and the 
family murdered about a year after the Hartmann massacre. 
From 1755-65, Indian massacres were frequent and the early 
settlers were obliged to often flee for their lives. Daniel Dei- 
bert says, " my grandfather William and his brother, Michael, 
saved their lives by fleeing over the Blue Mountains to their 
father's home in Bern township." They buried their farming 
implements, but in their haste did not mark the place and on. 
their return could not find the cache. When the Schuylkill 
canal wasdug they finally found their treasures, which had been 
supplemented in the interim with others. There have been rude 
cooking utensils found on the Peale and Filbert farms, Indian 
arrows and pottery, which shows that Indians lived in that 
locality. 

It is claimed by the descendants of Peter Orwig, that prior 
to the laying out of Orwigsburg inl794-5, as recorded, one 
Gottfried Orwig and wife emigrated from Germany in 1747, 
and located upon a tract of forest land on what is now 
Kimmel's farm, ond that Peter Orwig, was his grandson. If 



©Iti Scfjuglktll Cales. 27 



this claim is correct (there is no reason to doubt it) then Orwig 
settled in that locality before Hartmann or the Deiberts. It 
is probably true that there were others, too, in the vicinity, 
some of whom never returned after the Indian scare. 

Among the Germans and Swiss who landed in New York 
in 1710 and settled in Livingstone Manor, there were twenty- 
three families who subsequently settled in the region of Tulpe- 
hocken, about fifteen miles from Reading. Among them were 
the families of Lorenz, John-Philip and Martin Zerwe or Zerbe, 
three brothers. On account of the bad treatment accorded 
them by the authorities in the dispossessing them of their lands, 
they left Livingstone Manor, IST. Y., and settled in the Schoharie 
Valley, where they lived ten years. There, after making many 
improvements to their homesteads, they were deprived of them 
through a defect in the title. 

After enduring many hardships and privations, they trav- 
eled across the country to the Susquehanna river, where they 
built rude rafts on which they drifted down the stream to where 
the Swatara creek empties into the river, at Middletown. They 
followed this stream to near where Jonestown now stands and 
distributed thereabouts, settling near "Keith's Kirche.'' 

George Zerbc, Sr., who lived in Panther Valley frequently 
related the trials and difficulties these three brothers endured 
with others in 'New York State and their emigration to Penn- 
sylvania. Their names, John Philip, Lorenz and Martin, occur 
among the list of taxables of male inhabitants over twenty-one 
years of age, 1711, in Livingstone Manor. He told of their 
nephew, Jacob Zerwe or Zerbe, whose name is also given in 



28 ^Iti ^djuslfetll STalcs. 



Rupp's "Thirty Thousand Immigrants' Supplement," as Jean 
Jacques Servier. They were all from Alsace and Lorraine, 
France, but subsequently removed to Switzerland, during the 
fierce struggles in the Palatines. Jean Jacques Servier came to 
America at the age of 29 in the ship Patience, Capt. Hugh 
Steel from Kotterdam, last from Cowes and qualified at Phila- 
delphia, September 17, 1753. 

In the list of taxables for the year 1772 in Pinegrove town- 
ship, then a part of Berks County, appear the names of Benja- 
min, Daniel and Philip Zerbe, descendants of the three first 
named and in the record of Jacob's Church, 1799, occurs the 
name of Johannes Zerbe, a son doubtless, of one of the 
above. George Zerbe, Sr., first settled near the site of Port 
Clinton, subsequently removing to Bender Thai. Three sons, 
Henry, Daniel and George, were the fruit of this marriage. 
Daniel took up a claim near Cressona, George removed to West 
Brunswick township where he located a homestead. Henry 
worked on the building of the new Court House, where he con- 
tracted malaria from the eftect? of a sunstroke and died after a 
six weeks' illness of typhoid fever. He left one son, Henry M. 
Zerbe, of Lewistown, Mifflin County, the late head of that 
branch of the family. Daniel died when still a young man, leav- 
ing a widow. George Zerbe, Jr., lived to a ripe old age and left 
three sons and several daughters. He was the father of the late 
W. M. Zerbey, of Pottsville. 

George Zerbe had a retentive memory and related the story 
of the murder by the Indians of the two children of Frederick 
Reichelsderfer and the burning of their cabin. The killing of 
Jacob Gerhart, two women and six children, two of the children 



©Ill Scf)uslkill CTalcs. 29 



escaping by hiding nnder the bed clothes. The massacre oc- 
curred in 1756. The story with others was told him by his 
father, George Zerbe, Sr. There were Indian troubles at the 
old mill at Landing^^ille, built by Swartz in 1755, and also at 
the Boyer mill near Orwigsburg, built in 1770. 

A George Zeisloff, his wife, a son of twenty, and one of 
twelve, and a girl of fourteen they scalped, and killed their 
horses, carrying off their most valuable effects. Sometime later 
the Indians again troubled the early pioneers and carried off the 
wife and three children of Adam Burns. They murdered a man 
named Adam Trump and took his wife and son prisoners, the 
woman escaping. In her flight she was pursued and one of the 
redskins threw a tomahawk at her which cut a deep gash in her 
neck. In 1775, near what is now Friedensburg, a neigh- 
bor from the Panther Valley went over to Henry Hartman's 
house and found him lying on his face in the doorway. He had 
been scalped by the Indians. Two men were found scalped on 
the State road to Sunbury and they were buried by the settlers 
who turned out to hunt the red fiends. 



DEFENSE AGAINST THE INDIANS 



The avowed object of the French and Indian War was to 
M'ipe out every white settler from the face of the soil of Penn- 
sylvania. The Journals of Commissary Young and Col. Burd 



30 (J^lti ^cI)U2lkill (Jaleg. 



tell of a visit of inspection made the Indian forts, in 1758, and 
accompanying facts of deep interest. This chain of forts con- 
sisting of a system of over forty block-houses, stockades and 
log forts, with shelter for the women and children enclosed, 
reached from the month of the Delaware river to Fort Augusta, 
the outpost at Sunbury. 

They afforded the settlers a refuge if they could reach 
them but many were killed enroute or died from exposure or 
privation. One woman, Mrs. Frederick Myers, who was 
ploughing was shot through both breasts and then scalped. Her 
husband was found in the woods some distance away, scalped. 
A detachment of soldiers from 'Fort Lebanon took a ladder and 
carried the man to his wiie and the neighbors buried both. The 
man had the one year old baby in his arms Avhich he tried to 
save and which though scalped lived. 

The Finscher family who lived at the mill at Schuylkill 
Haven, were massacred and also the Heims at Landingville and 
Everhards, at Pinegrove. Sculps, or Scalps Hill, was so called 
owing to the number of scalps taken by the Indians in that 
vicinity. It is believed that more than one hundred persons in 
this county and in this immediate vicinity were killed l)y the 
Indians. 

Fort Lebanon, between Auburn and Pinedale, was erected 
by Capt. Jacob Morgan, in 1756; Fort Franklin, by Benjamin 
Franklin, Philadelphia, in 1756, on Bolich's farm, West Penn 
Twp; Fort Diedrich Snyder on top of the Blue Mountain and 
Fort Henry at Pinegrove; these were the defenses of Schuylkill 
County: Fort Allen, near the Lehigh river, and Forts jSTorris 
and Hamilton, farther south, afforded protection for the settlers 



©Itj ^cfjuglfeill (ZTaleg. 31 



of the lower counties. Fort Lebanon was later known as Fort 
William. It was located on the farm of Lewis Marburger. 

These forts were block-houses enclosed with a stockade of 
logs. They were fortified and some of them had subterranean 
passages for short distances for escape in case of defeat. 



WILL MARK HISTORIC SPOTS 



It is the object of the Schuylkill County Historical So- 
ciety to erect markers on the historic spots of these old block 
forts and on the sites of the early Indian Massacres if the 
latter can be established. It has been so frequently asserted 
that, "as Schuylkill County was one of the later creations 
of counties in the State it had no history. That its early his- 
tory belonged to the counties of which it was first a part." 
This is a mistake. The occurrences narrated belong to the 
locality in which they existed, and Schuylkill County is rich 
in historical lore; the error has been that the early settlers 
neglected to transcribe the facts. From time to time parties 
have come to the region from other parts with the avoAved 
purpose of creating histories of Schuylkill County. While 
the data of the compilations (already on record in the archives 
of Pennsylvania) is correct, little that is original has been 
added to these works beyond the lives of individuals of a 
later period who have been prominent (and some of whom 



32 ©Iti Scljuulfeill erales. 



who have not,) in the business circles of the County. The 
histories have been compiled ^or advertising purposes and a 
certain sum secured the privilege of perpetuating the business 
or life history of a patron. It must not, however, be over- 
looked that many of the early settlers were husbandmen, or 
men not identified in pursuits that brought them prominently 
before the public. That the real makers of history in any 
locality cannot be those who merely visit it for purposes of 
gain, they must necessarily be of those who are identified with 
it, since much that is of interest is imparted and preserved only 
through scant written records and so largely through recol- 
lection and substantiated tradition. 

Our mountain rocks, with engraved plates inserted will 
furnish markers for the sites of the Indian, Forts, these Indian 
tales and the massacres. They should be erected as speedily as 
possible. It will not be many years before those who are still 
able to imjoart information on these subjects will have j)assed 
away. To mark all historic spots in the County and individually 
assist in every way possible those who are attempting to 
preserve our local history should be the aim of all who are able 
to assist in the matter. 



EARLY REMINISCENCES 



It is not altogether the aim or purpose of the writer to 
compile the data of the early chronological facts of the history 
of Schuylkill County, but ratlier to preserve the tales and rem- 



©llj Sc^uolkill Cales. 33 



iniscences of the early settlers. To accomplish this properly 
it is necessary to draw upon recorded history to furnish the true 
facts as a foundation for the story teller's art and give the 
needed back-ground for the word-pictures. Those who are 
familiar with these tales may, perhaps, complaisantly imitate 
the example of the good Vicar of Wakefield and his family 
when Farmer Flamborough aired his old jokes and they gave 
them their due of mirth again. As for the critics, anyone can 
criticise. These stories were not written for critics to quib- 
ble at, but with the view of perpetuating the narratives as little 
pleasantries of the early days. With the thought that — "A 
little nonsense now and then is relished by the best of men" 
(and some women too) and no further apolog;)^, they are pre- 
sented to the reader. 



HOW "OLD DRESS" SCARED THE INDIANS 



The Indians in this section in the early days were a rem- 
nant of the Shawanese, N'anticoke and Delaware tribes. 
Three of the original six nations with whom William Penn 
made the treaty. The others being the Susquehannas, Hurons 
and Eries. There existed a continuous chain of Indian vil- 
lages from the Delaware to the upper waters of the Susque- 
hanna. One of the chain of war paths extended to Sunbury, 
where stood Fort Augusta, named in honor of a daughter of 
George the Second, who married the Duke of Saxony. Schuyl- 

3 



34 ©Iti Scl)unlkiU EaU&. 



kill Coimty was not on the chain of war paths, but the savage 
marauders raided the locality as history shows. 

Shamokin an Indian village stood on the present site of 
Sunbnry, from which Shamokin afterward took its name. 

The Indians that remained in this vicinity after the 
Indian War were not of one powerful tribe but included some 
Mochicans in addition to those indicated above. The Moravians 
farther southeast made strenuous efforts to Christianize the red 
man, Rev, David Zeisburger converted Shekilling,, the chief of 
the Delawares, and the county paid for their scalps. The war of 
extermination waged against them so reduced their number that 
those that scattered b3yond the pale of their tribal restrictions 
were considered harmless, but falsely as the settlers discovered 
to their undoing. 

How "Old Dress" scared the Indians in the great Indian 
massacre just after the French and Indian War shov/s what a 
strategist can do if he has courage and is endowed with enough 
presence of mind. The Dress family lived in the Panther 
Valley (Bender Thai) on or near the farm now owned and oc- 
cupied as a summer country home by Doctor B , a leading 

Physician in the town of P , about six miles udthwest. 

The Indians had been friendly at first, but since success 
was beginning to crown the efforts of the hardy pioneers, there 
were mntterings of discontent among them, and they had upon 
one or two occasions shown their hostility, but no real depreda- 
tions had been perpetrated as yet. 

Murders had been committed farther south, defenseless 
women and children were scalped or taken into captivity, their 
homes burned and their cattle driven away and the settlers were 



<©lli Scfjuglkill EnltQ, 35 



tortured beyond measure, but "Bender Thai" remained unmo- 
lested. 

Word came one day that there was an uprising among the 
Indians and that they were headed for the Valley. The block 
stockade, Fort Lebanon, near what is now Auburn, had served 
upon several occasions as a place of refuge for the settlers when 
in danger of being attacked; and thither the now thoroughly 
frightened pioneers in "Bender Thai" made their preparations 
to flee. 

The Avomen and children were gathered together and placed 
in charge of Zerbe; and Kemerling and Markel gathered the 
cattle to drive them to a place of safety. The Dress family 
formed part of the little caravan that turned toward the fort, 
but "Old Dress" was obdurate. He would not go. 

He was the first settler to discover the rich farming land in 
that locality. He had spent several years in the "Thai" re- 
turning again and again to it and finally brought to it his wife 
and family. The Indians had given him the first kernels of 
com which he planted as seed and in turn lie had shown them 
how to fashion the rude farming implements he used, the iron 
for which he brought from the Pott furnace on Maxatawny 
creek. 

Once he had opened a great abscess for "Sagawatch" the 
chief of the mongrel tribe and dressed it Avith home-made salve. 
iSTot without some display of the necromancer's art, it must be 
confessed, for he knew he was powerless among them, and 
"Sagawatch" was cured. He had frequently treated their 
"boils" with which they were afflicted, the result of dirt and 
squalor and improper food, for they were a lazy set, and looking 



36 ©lt« Sd)uglkill STaks. 



upon him as sometliing of a medicine man, the Indians called 
him the "Little White Father;" and believed^ some of them, 
that he had supernatural powers. 

It was only the week before that an apparently friendly 
set had visited him. The mother had just completed the family 
baking in the huge Dutch oven back of the log cabin and on the 
plea of wanting a present from the "Little White Father" every- 
one of the large brown well-baked loaves of bread had found 
Iheir way into a sack with other things they managed to lay 
hands on, and the good wife had another batch of bread to 
make. In the meantime the family subsisted on potato "buf- 
fers," (a species of hoecakes made of grated potato and flour 
and baked on the hearth) until the leaven had raised and the 
new bread was again baked. 

Just a glance at "Old Dress" would show that he was not a 
man to be trifled with. Short, stout, broad of girth, and with 
sinewy muscles that stood out like whip cords, he was the picture 
of health and alert activity. His face was smooth and red and 
as has often been said of men who wear that type of whiskers, 
around the face from car to ear underneath the chin, it was easy 
to be seen he was a man of determination. He wore his hair, 
which was scant, for he was partially bald, all combed up after 
the fashion of those days into a single tuft on the top of his 
head. This tuft from long practice stood up straight. If any- 
one could circumvent the Indians, the settlers knew he could. 
There was little time for parleying and the women and children 
mth their leaders were soon out of sight. 

Dress made his way hurriedly to the hillside and screened 
from view by some friendly bushes watched the approach of the 



©It Sctuglfeill EalcQ. 37 



redskins. They came some seated on their Indi'an ponies, the 
young braves running; at the sides of the old men. Smeared 
with their war paint and with their w^ar toggery on, beating 
their tom-toms and yelling like mad, they struggled up the 
defile. 

He could not count them, although he at first tried. There 
was SagaWatch, too, the greasy villain and traitor. What could 
lie do single handed against so many, "vvith his one old flint lock 
musket and home-made cartridges and Marie not here to help 
load. 

He fingered the tuft of hair, his top-knot which he knew 
would soon be hanging with the other smoking and srory scalps 
from the belts of the foremost of the band, and his mind was 
made up. Taking an extra hitch at his rusty brown linsey wool- 
sey trousers and rolling up the sleeves of his yellow grey woolen 
shirt, he ran as hard as he could in the direction of the oncoming 
murderous crew and in full view of them to the crest of the 
near-by hill. Screaming and yelling at the top of his voice and 
wildly gesticulating with his long bare arms and pointing mth 
his fingers: "Come on, Boys," he yelled. "Here are the In- 
dians." (Cum Buva, dah sin Sie, Die Incha.) He screamed un- 
til he was purple with rage and told one imaginary party, with 
the wildest of signs and commands, to close up the defile and 
prevent their escape, the others should file up the left and right 
and surround them, and the rest should follow him. "Saga- 
watch" the murderous "tuyfel" could understand German, he 
knew, for he himself had taught him many words in the current 
vernacular. And then still screaming as loud as he could and 
doubly gesticulating, he ran down the hill with all his might to- 



38 ©Iti Srijimlkill QTaks. 



ward the red warriors, avIio thought they were being attacked 
by at least a battalion of soldiers under command of ''Old 
Dross," and they showed the white feather and turned tail and 
fled as fast as they could in the direction in which they had coiue. 

All night "Old Dress" M-atched at the single window of the 
little log hut. His blunderbuss and old musket ready, he 
would sell his life as dearly as possible, if they returned; but 
they never did. 

AVhen the Kemerlings, Zerbes and the others retui-ned, 
''Old Dress" was quietly sitting in front of his cabin mending 
an old fish net. The cattle had all been recovered by him from 
their impounding in tlie clearings in the mountain fastnesses 
and returned to their rightful owners. The cows had been 
milked, the cream was ready for the good wives to churn and 
everything was going on as usual. The Indians never molested 
the settlers again, and even to this day "Old Dress" is a hero 
to the descendants of the families of the early settlers of 
"Bender Thai." 



ELIZABETH'S MAD RIDE 



The Pennsylvania Germans, whose ancestors were exiled 
from their homes in the beautiful valley of the Rhine and 
Neckar by furious religious and political persecution, did not 
find life in their adopted home one on a bed of roses. The 
Miller and the Stout families originated in Alsace and Lo- 



mXi ScfjiiglktU QTales. 39 



raine. During the many fierce wars, in which these provinces 
were made a mere football by the contending forces of the 
Romans, Gauls and Germans, they migrated farther north to 
the Rhine Palatinate, which was then one of two divisions of an 
independent State of Germany. Again they migrated from the 
region of the Schwalm River to Switzerland from where they 
embarked for the United States of America in 1754. 

The story of the Rhine Pfalz is one of great interest. 
There is no region or country on the globe that has witnessed so 
many bloody conflicts as the Palatinate on the Rhine. The 
Romans struggled for more than five centuries to subdue the 
Germans only to leave them unconquered and when the Romans 
withdrew, the rich valley was coveted by European nations. 
The crimes committed in the Palatinate in consequence of re- 
ligious intolerance, fanaticism and political j^ersocution are un- 
paralleled in the history of human savagery. And this region 
continued to be the theatre of conflict after the great exodus of 
the German Palatines, which took place in the last half of the 
eighteenth century. 

The German emigrants to New York who had suffered 
untold miseries with internal difficulties in the Schoharie 
Valley, with regard to the set>tlement of their lands and the 
titles to them, had again taken wing; and many of them turned 
under the leadership of John Conrad Weiser and his son, Con- 
rad, to Pennsylvania. It was about 1754-1756 when the large 
influx of the Pfalzisch Germans came to Pennsylvania and 
settled in B(M'ks (^ounty, which has since been subdivided into 
Berks, Dauphin, Lebanon, Schuylkill and parts of other 
counties. 



40 ®lti Srf)UDHull (lalcs. 



The Millers and the Stouts came over with the great 
exodus. The lands in the vicinity of the sites of Womelsdorf, 
Reading, Bern vi lie, Tulpehocken and along the fertile Schuyl- 
kill Valley were soon taken up by the settlers. The families 
settled first near Tulpehocken, where both Andrew Miller and 
Elizabeth Stout were born, the former in 1756. The Stouts 
were represented in the five full companies that enlisted from 
the German settlers for immediate service after the adoption of 
the Declaration of Independence, in 1776, and the ^Millers, too, 
had sons that took the field and rendered conspicuous aid during 
the early part of the war, at the close of which the two families 
with several others removed to Bear Creek, east of what is 
now Auburn, between the Blue Mountain and the Summer 
Berg. 

John Lesher, brother-in-law of John Wilhelm Pott, 
operated a forge and small furnace on Pine Creek and there 
was another near the site of Auburn, and here the men of the 
Miller and Stout families worked when not employed on their 
farms. The women occupied themselves with the milking of the 
cows, churning and making butter and raising the hemp from 
which was spun the flax that afterward made the coarse, soft 
linen that formed the bed sheets, towels and linen underwear of 
the families, some of which is still cherished among their 
descendants as the most precious of heirlooms. They also 
manufactured on rude looms the coarse homespun cloths, dyed 
them with home-made colors and fashioned them into the clothes 
their families wore. Those were busy times, but not unhappy 
ones. 

No more beautiful countrv exists anvwhere than that in- 



©It) Scijuglkill Ealts. 41 



eluded in the tract from Bear Ridge and the Summer Berg to 
the Old Red Church below Orwigsbnrg. All around were 
primeval forests. The silvery Schuylkill uncontaminated by 
coal washings glistened in the distance. The roads through the 
forests were mere bridal paths and the first slow, gradual 
taming of the wilderness, the rolling hills to the edges of the 
Blue Mountain, the advance from the low log cabins, the scat- 
tered, scratch-farms to the first dwellings and farms of greater 
pretentions as the rich country grew in wealth and ambition, 
made a picture that excites the liveliest imagination. 

It was past the noon mark on the sundial at the little low 
farm house on Bear Ridge, when Elizabeth Stout completed the 
chores for the morning. The milk in the spring-house was all 
skimmed, the log floor and huge hearth swept up with the birch 
broom, the linen bleaching on the meadow had been turned and 
wet anew, the blue delf china after the nooning was washed and 
spread on the great mahogany dresser. Elizabeth's deft fingers 
soon bound up her abundant brown hair with the snood that con- 
fined it ; she slipped into her short bright brown cloth skirt, red 
pointed bodice with surplice of bright green, a concoction of 
colors she had made with home-made dyes and fashioned and 
copied the dress from the picture of a grand dame she had once 
seen. 

Her sleeves just reached the elbow disclosing a pair of 
plump and shapely arms that would have been the envy of any 
city belle. Her stockings were bright red, knitted by her own 
nimble fingers. Her feet were encased in a pair of heavy shoes, 
for she must save the pretty low slippers adorned with the huge 
silver buckles that had remained among the few relics of tho 



42 ©Iti Sdjuglki'Il QTaks. 



struggle under General Washington at Valley Forge and which 
were given her by her father. She had worn the buckles at 
various times on her bodice, at her waist, and now on her slip- 
pers, which were safely encased in the saddle bags together with 
a new cream cheese and some brodwurst tied firmly in snowy 
cloths and destined for a gift to the mother of the friend Eliza- 
beth was about to visit. 

She knotted a gay-colored 'kerchief about her bare neck 
and tied with its single plain black ribbon over her hair, the 
Avhite turned back half hood and half sunbonnet or Normandy 
cap she wore ; and adding the snowy white linen spencer for 
evening wear on her bosom and a few trinkets and necessaries 
to the little stock of clothing in the saddle bags, her prepara- 
tions were complete. The black mare Avhinnied when she saw 
her approach with riding paraphernalia in hand and permitted 
herself to be caught without any remonstrance. 

What a picture Elizabeth was. One that Joshua Rey- 
nolds would not have disdained to copy. Just eighteen and 
above medium height, well-developed and yet with not an 
ounce of superfluous flesh on her lithe form, well-rounded limbs 
and well-knit body. Large soft brown eyes, rosy cheeks, pearly 
teeth, smooth skin that the bright green and red in her raiment 
lighted brilliantly and harmonized with. 

She was soon in the saddle and cantered ofl^, waving her 
hand to her mother who sat at her spindle in a little building 
near the farm house, where the maid of all work was busily en- 
gaged in paring and stringing apples for drying and a little 
farther on her father with such scanty help as he could gather 
was with the yokels engaged in shocking the late corn. 



©Ill Scfjuglkill 9Eale0. 43 



A few miles of swift riding along the ledge brought her to 
the river which was soon forded. There were no wandering 
nomads to disturb the peaceful soliloquy of the traveler. The 
Indians were quieted down, at least for a time, and Fort 
Lebanon, the old log fortress of defense against the red-skinned 
marauders, looked deserted as she cantered by. 

Xature was lavish to that valley. The huge mountains 
were dim with the Fall haze and looked blue and golden and red- 
tinted in the bright rays of the sun. The early sumacs had 
turned blood red and the golden maples painted the landscape 
with their dying beauty and brilliant splendor. The horse sped 
easily along the path and Elizabeth aroused by the beauty of 
the scene broke into the well-known Lutheran hymn "Ein feste 
berg ist Unser Gott," and sang the words to the close, the moun- 
tains re-echoing the song of praise of the German nut-brown 
maid. Then she dismounted and bathed her face in a running 
mountain stream. Shaping a cup from a huge wild grape leaf, 
she drank and gave the mare a loose rein that she, too, might 
slake her thirst. Drawing a small porcelain picture, that hung 
suspended about her neck by a narrow black velvet ribbon, from 
her bosom, she adjusted her white Js^ormandy cap and taking a 
sly peep at herself in the limpid water, she kissed the picture 
and mounted the mare who neighed with delight at the prospect 
of once more starting toward the bag of oats she knew awaited 
her. The picture was that of Andrew Miller and they were 
betrothed. 

The sun was already hanging low in the horizon when they 
entered the heart of the forest through which their path lay. 
The great oaks cast gigantic shadows over the entrance but the 



44 ©It) ^cfjiiglkill Calfs. 



fragrant pines Avere well-blazed and tlie pathway plain and 
Elizabeth was a brave girl and there was nothing to fear; but 
she well knew that tliey must make haste if they would make 
the clearing near the mill below the Red Church before dark, 
where her friend Polly Orwig lived and where the corn husking 
would take place that evening. And where she expected to 
see her affianced, xindrew Miller, who had assisted at the raising 
of the new barn as was the custom in those days, and the 
husking was given in honor of the new building. 

Elizabeth kept the mare at as brisk a pace as she could 
through the tangled underbrush and morass. She thought of 
Andrew how sturdy he was, surely of all the suitors for her 
hand she had the finest, the best looking man and the best in- 
formed. They had been lovers from their childhood, com- 
panions always but this brotherly affection had deepened into 
something more intense, something that fairly frightened her 
when she recalled how he had looked when he told her of all the 
girls around and about the countrj^ she was the handsomest. 
But her mother had told her, "it was a sin to think of one's 
looks," and had promptly removed the high stool from in front 
of the dresser, in the top of which was a huge looking glass, 
when Elizabeth attempted to see for herself if there was any 
truth in the assertion. 

The shadows grew longer, the squirrels and rabbits 
scampered hurriedly across the path, the late birds had sought 
their nests, and the occasional screech of the panthers and other 
wild animals added not a little to her apprehensions about the 
lateness of the hour and the little mare seemed, too, to be dis- 
quieted and nervous. The superstitions of the country arose 



©Itj Scfjuglkill SEales. 45 



in her mind and she knew that they were nearing a little 
clearing in the forest where lived a German refugee who was 
accused of witchcraft and who was said to have the power of 
turning himself into a white cat and at times the wood was filled 
with a gathering of the felines, who would fill the air with their 
snarling and screeching. 

Hark ! there v>^as the sound she had often heard described 
but had forgotten about. A frightful yell. Surely the man 
would not hurt her. Had not her father carried him food in 
the ox sledge in the dead of winter that he might not starve 
and had ho not always been kind to her when he came to bor- 
row the few necessary things for his existence, which he never 
returned. 

There it was again. Yes! and on that tree a white object 
with fiery green eyes. It was the witch, she dared not look 
again. There was a scream, a dull thud, she looked over her 
shoulder and saw a white cat perched on the haunches of the 
mare. Trembling with fear that each moment would be her last 
Elizabeth gave the mare the rein and leaning forward clasped 
her arms about her neck knowing full Avell that the little beast 
would do her best, she needed no urging and then she closed 
her eyes and prayed and prayed and waited. 

On and on they sped. The soft green moss yielded to the 
hoofs of the mare and made the riding hea\y. But Black Bess 
went as she never did before as if knowing her pretty mistress' 
life was the stake for which she was fleeing. From her nos- 
trils came huge flecks of foam, her fetlocks and sides were wet; 
with sweat and from her haunches dripped drops of livid red 
blood from the clawing of the white cat on her back. 



46 ^\ti Scf}iiglkill STalfS. 



Elizabeth could feel the hot breath of the creature but be- 
youd an occasional unearthly yell and fresh clawing of the 
mare it made no eifort to harm her. What a mad ride it was! 
Tam O'Shanter's was a mild one in comparison to it. Would 
the clearing never be reached ? It seemed ages to the trembling 
girl and again she closed her eyes and prayed and feebly 
stroked the mare's ears. At length she heard a soft snort in 
response. The clearing was in sight, like a silvery rift in the 
clouds, a light in the gathering darkness. The Old Red Church 
would soon be arrived at, and the witches hated churches and 
perhaps . 

Just then a dark figure loomed up as they emerged from 
the wood. It was her betrothed, Andrew Miller, who came out 
to meet her. He caught the bridle of the exhausted and panting 
mare, the white cat gave a parting screech and disappeared in 
the wood and Elizabeth fell fainting into his arms. When she 
recovered he hinted at wild cats but the trembling Elizabeth 
would hear nothing of them. "Who ever heard of a wild cat act- 
ing that way ?" said she. But being a sensible girl she consented 
to keep her adventure a secret until the morrow, for well 
she knew that the story of a witch so near would mar all the 
pleasure of the merry party. 

The husking was a great event in a country bereft almost 
of entertainment for the younger people and it was the first one 
of its kind held in that part of the State. The trick of finding 
a red ear and then exacting a kiss from your partner was new 
to her and from the frequency with which Andrew exacted the 
forfeit she suspected him of having secreted some of the tell- 
tale Indian cereal on his person but he gave no sign. And the 



(©It Scf)iiglfeiU STalES. 47 



supper, how good it was and how hungry they all were and how 
they enjoyed it! 

Elizabeth left for home in the bright sunlight on tlie mor- 
row accompanied by Andrew^ who walked all the way by her 
side. But not without Elizabeth's having first confided to Polly 
the story of her adventure with the white cat. Polly, too, 
decided it was a witch but thought the witch meant her no harm 
but good luck, as the wedding was to take place at Christmas. 
And a wutch the white cat has remained through successive 
generations as each in turn hands the narrative to the next. 

Note : Andrew Miller and Elizabeth Stout were married 
December 25th, 1786. They raised a large family of boys 
and girls among whom was a daughter, Hannah, who was mar- 
ried to Andrew Schwalm in 1819, at Orwigsburg, and from 
whom are descended a large line of that name and other leading 
families residing in Old Schuylkill, Pottsville and elsewhere 
throughout the country. The John and Joseph Schwalm, Wm. 
E. Boyer, Frederick Haeseler and Wm. M. Zerbey families, are 
descendants of Andrew Schwalm and Hannah Miller. Eliza- 
beth Stout was the great-great grandmother of the children of 
the present generation of the above mentioned. In the list of 
taxables, returned, Eeading, Berks County, about 1780, occurs 
the name of Andrew Schwalm, Tulpehocken. At that date 
the area from between the Lebanon Valley Railway to the Blue 
Mountain was known as Tulpehocken. This district has since 
furnished the dimensions for several townships in Berks 
and Lebanon Counties. The name Tulpehocken does not refer 
to the mere post office or locality as it now exists but included 



48 



©ItJ ScfjuglktU EaltQ. 



the area to Womelsdorf. Andrew Sclnvalm, Sr., was the father 
of Andrew Schwalm the above. 










PART II 



OLDEST TOWNS OF SCHUYLKILL COUNTY 



PART II 



OLDEST TOWNS OF SCHUYLKILL COUNTY 



m y| IcKEAXSBURG has the honor of being the oldest town in 
_ I Schuylkill County. The greater part of the town was 

L^^J laid out in 1803, and the remainder in 1809. The town 
was named after Governor Thomas Mclvean. Warrants 
for tracts of land were issued to the first settlers as early as 1750, 
the Webb family, who afterward sold their interest to Peter Or- 
wig in 1790, being the original owners. Others followed, and a 
strong fight was waged to make this town the county seat. When 
Schuylkill was partitioned from Berks to ^Northampton, Orwigs- 
burg had one of its citizens in the Legislature and succeeded in 
getting the Court House plum. Judge Daniel Yost, a native of 
Montgomery County, was made a Justice by Geo. Snyder in 
1809. He became one of the first Judges of the Court of Com- 
mon Pleas in 1811. He lived and died in ^IcKeansburg, where 
he is buried. The grandfather of the late Judge D. B. Green 
lived there. The ancestors of Judge R. H. Koch, the father 
of Banker Jacob Huntzinger, Joshua Boyer and Dr. J. F. 
Treichler. one of the first physicians prominently known in the 
County, who was engaged in active practice for more than fifty 
yfears, were among the early settlers of McKeansburg. It is 

51 



52 <{^lt) Scl^uglkill STaleg. 



related that when the commissioners appointed by the Governor 
to examine the rival towns, Orwigsbiirg and McKeansburg, ar- 
rived at the former place a ruse was employed to gain the 
advantage. Peter Frailey, Daniel Graeff, John Kobb, John 
Drehr. Phillip Hoy and others induced the nearby owners of 
saw mills along the creek that ran along the Borough to dam 
up the Avater supply for a period. At a signal from the men, 
the bloAving of a horn, the flood gates were hoisted and the Man- 
hannan had such a supply of Avater that the commissioners con- 
cluded that it would be an excellent town for manufacturing 
purposes and Orwigsburg became the County seat. 



OLD UNDERGROUND PASSAGE 



On what was the Heinrich Boyer homestead, near Mc- 
Keansburg, where the heads of most of the families of that 
name, in different parts of the County, originated from, a 
valuable discovery was recently made. The early settler, Boyer, 
who settled here in 1754, whose log cabin stood for many years 
on the farm, had made a means of defense for himself and his 
neighbors against the Indians. He built and timbered an 
underground passage from the cabin to a tree some distance 
away, where there was an opening, for a means, of exit and es- 
cape to safety. It was covered at the mouth with a brush heap 
to conceal it and was entered from the cabin by removing a log 



©ItJ Sctuglkill (Ealfs. 53 



at the fire place. The picture of this cabin is a highly prized 
asset anioiiii' the descendants of Ileinrich Boyer. 



ORWIGSBURG SECOND TOWN IN THE COUNTY 



Orwigsburg was laid out in 1794 by Peter Orwig, bache- 
lor, of Brunswick Township, then Berks County. A small 
pass book found among the effects of Christopher Loeser, Esq., 
gives the names of one hundred and forty-eight purchasers of 
lots, with the dates of the deeds to the same, all of which were 
recorded during the months of April, 1795, and April, 1796. 
Some of these lots were subject to ground rent and on this 
fact the claims of a lawsuit by the Orwig heirs and others is 
based. Schuylkill County separated from Berks and N^orth- 
ampton in 1811, but it was not imtil March 12, 1813, that 
Orwigsburg was regularly incorporated and became the County 
seat. 

Of the older towns of the County the following is the data 
with that of other leadinsr events : 



^& 



McKeansburg, First Settlers 1750 

" Town laid out 1803 

Orwigsburg, First Settlers 1747-1755-1794 

" Town laid out, Tnc 1794-5-1813 

Pottsville, First Settlers 1780-1796-1802-4-6 

" Town laid out, Inc 1816-1828 



54 <J^ltJ ScfjuuHuU Ea\e&, 



Scliiiylkill Haven Incorporated 1841 

" First Settlers 1775 

Tamaqua laid out by Schuylkill Coal and JSTavi- 

gation Co . . . .' 1830 

Minersville, First Settlers 1793 

Laid out, Inc 1830-1881-'41 

Port Clinton, laid out, Inc 1828-1829 

St. Clair, Incorporated ISI-t 

Port Carbon. First Settlers 1826 

Pinegrove, First Settlers 1816 

Laid out 1830 

The "north of the mountain" towns are of mushroom 
growth as compared with the above and exist only since the upper 
basin of coal was opened. Different localities had their early 
settlers. Mahanoy City was incorporated in 1863, and its con- 
temporaries in the upper valleys followed in its wake, during 
the next decade or two, and have since shovm the most remark- 
able growth and spirit of enterprise and progress. Their in- 
corporation is of too recent date to be included at this point. 



SCHUYLKILL COUNTY FOLK-LORE 



^0 country is richer in legendary folk-lore than that of 
the southern part of Schuylkill County. There were many 
quaint characters among the early pioneers. These frontiers- 
men were accredited with a phlegmatic temperament that the 



©Iti Scfjuglkill EaltQ. 55 



(leliohtful imagery of poesy and imagination was not snp])osed 
to penetrate. Yet the old citizen of to-day will narrate the tales 
of his youth, stories rich with the folk-lore of the early days, the 
stories of his grandsires, that made his hair stand on an end, on 
occasions, and caused him many a sleepless night. He will tell 
you in one breatli that there was nothing in them and with the 
next reiterate with Hamlet, that, ''There are more things be- 
tween Heaven and earth, Ploratio, than are dreamt of in your 
philosophy." 

Many superstitions existed among the early settlers of 
Schuylkill and Berks Counties. The ISTew Englanders were 
not alone in their belief in witches. The same belief was rife 
in the southern part of this County, where several so-called 
magicians lived who were believed to be in league with the 
spirits, and who practised on the credulity of the country people 
for their own benefit. One of these was a man named Hunt- 
sicker, who claimed to have discovered the lost books of Moses 
in a s})ur of the Blue Ridge Mountains near where he lived. 



PROLOGUE 
SIXTH AND SEVENTH BOOKS OF MOSES 



The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses were traiislated 
from the Hebrew by Rabbi Chaleb from the Weimar Bible, and 
are dedicated to Magical Spirit-Art. It is claimed that these 



56 ©It! Sri)unlkill ^Talfs. 



two books were revealed by God to Moses on Mount Sinai and 
subsequently came into the bands of Aaron, Caleb, Joshua, and 
finally to David and Solomon, and were then lost. In the original 
Hebrew it says: ''Thus spake the Lord of Hosts to me, Moses." 

All the mysteries of conjuration through the seals of the 
Heavenly messengers that appeared to Isaac and Abraham, the 
Cherubim and Seraphim and ministering angels of God are 
given in these books, together with the seals of the angels of 
the planets, and with these seals, it is claimed, wonders can be 
worked. The spirits of the air and the spirits of fire are said 
to be under the command of the angels of the seven planets and 
of the sun. It is also claimed that: 

The power of magic descended from the Israelites, when 
God spake to the people in dreams, so many of which are re- 
counted in the Holy Scriptures, and which are republished in 
these lost books of Moses. The vision of Jacob and the ladder 
wdth the angels, how Jacob Avas told to practice a certain some- 
thing that belonged to the art of necromancy in order to increase 
his herds, is given in full from the Bible story in Genesis. 
Other old Bible instances follow in succession, particular stress 
])eing given to the powers resembling magnetism which Moses 
possessed when he performed his wonders before Pharoah. 
When he smote the rock in Rephidim and the waters gushed 
forth, and the spirit of clairvoyance and prophecy is set forth, 
that the Lord permitted Moses to convey upon the seventy el- 
ders. Further it is asserted that : 

There were spurious magicians and prophets in those days 
but the school of these prophets, it was claimed, was inspired by 
God. The Kabala magic of the Sixth and Seventh Books of 



©It ScfjuglkiU Caks. 57 



Moses was only performed by the assistance of God, by men 
who purified themselves by fasting and prayer and relied on 
Him. They must lead clean lives and must be perfectly healthy, 
but they could not tell of their Art to others, nor impart how it 
was done. They might tell right-minded, God-fearing people 
that they were not wicked but that they were assisted by God, 
who gave them the power to command the spirits of Evil that 
worked among men. 

Note: — Anyone desiring to read further of the Sixth and 
Seventh Books of Moses will find a copy of them in the Li- 
brary of the Schuylkill County Historical Society. 



THE HUNTSICKERS 



One morning iu the early years of the last century, some- 
where in the 'Twenties, smoke was seen ascending from the 
chimney of the deserted old log cabin near the Abram Albright 
farm in West Brunswick Township, about a mile and a quarter 
from Orwigsburg, the old County seat. The Peterpins who lived 
at the fork in the roads had not had such close neighbors for a 
long time and their interest was excited. During the day the 
"Fader" took occasion to walk over, something like a half mile 
away, to offer his services, if they were needed, in the moving, 
and to see who the newcomers were. 

There were no visible evidences of moving or chattels 
about, except at the rude little shed that did duty as a bam, 
where a black cow was tethered and a number of black chickens 
ran abmit responding to the feed throAvn to them by a bent-up 



58 ©It) Scf}U2lkiU Calcs. 



lame and very black neg-ro, who was shambling about. "^'From 
the Long Swamp," said Father Peterpin, mentally. 

Now the Long Swamp people were the aversion of the 
thrifty German settlers. A motley crew of a mongrel type of 
Indians, Xegroes, and bad whites, some of them criminals, in- 
termarried and living mainly by their wits, for they were too 
lazy to work. Sometimes several of them would appear to help 
in the harvest or planting, and when, subsequently, hay, corn, 
and fodder or even potatoes disappeared, it was always laid to 
the thieving Long Swampers, who had first sent out their scouts 
to work and to see where what they wanted was to be had and 
then came after it at night. The Long Swampers made baskets 
from the willows that surrounded the swamp and acted as fakirs 
at the battalions and vendues, but beyond this had no visible 
means of supjxtrt. The remains of tlieir deserted cabins may 
still be seen on the edge of the swamp. 

The front door of the little cabin was opened and carefully 
shut by a plump, rotund little woman ^vith a great peaked white 
cap with broad ruffles on her head. Her dress was pinned up 
over a finely quilted silk petticoat and her white lawn 'kerchief 
crossed on her ample bosom, betokened a refinement of dress 
not common to that part of the country. She wore a large seal 
gold ring on the middle finger of her right hand wliicli she 
waved in welcome to Peterpin and said to him in a cultivated 
High German that ^'Herr Huntsicker was not at home. They 
had come to live there. She was glad to know that they had such 
kind and friendly neighbors as the Peterpins." From that 
time on they were known as ''Der Herr und Die Fran Hunt- 
sicker." 



mti ScJ^imlkill Cales. 59 



The lame negro, whom no one had ever seen belure, worked 
abont the place, patched up the old roof, fixed up the barn, 
milked the cow, but how they had come there no one knew. 
In the meantime, a quaint looking little old man would occasion- 
ally appear walking about the place, toward nightfall. His 
smootli-shaven face, yellow parchment-like skin, drawn tightly 
toward a large lialf-oj^en mouth filled with big, even yellow white 
teeth and with bloodless lips. He was carefully dressed in 
smooth black small clothes with high cut vest, swallow-tailed 
coat, high collar, black silk hat, like the '^Parrah" or the 
"Schulemaster," they said, and on the middle fingers of both 
hands he. too, wore a large golden seal ring. That was Herr 
Huntsicker. He seemed to be always searching for something 
in the ground or in the sky and invariably carried a half-open 
book in his hand Avhich he consulted carefully. 

The Huntsickers began to have strange company. People 
appeared from everywhere and especially at night. Then it 
began to be noised about that Huntsicker Avas a magician and 
performed strange mysteries of the spirit art. The good church 
people thereabouts would have none of it, but when they saw 
the results that sprang from the use of his occult powers they 
all believed in him, but said in whispers among themselves that 
it was from the Devil and not from God that such things Avcre 
done. 

Some of the most daring of the country people visited him, 
when at midnight he conjured up the beautiful and mild human 
form of a youth who was to bring them whatever they desired 
(but he said their lives must be entirely blameless; and what 
wonder if they never got their desires). Many carried or wore 



60 ©Iti Scljuglkill ^Taks. 



the high seals, in hieroglyphics, that would conjure the realiza- 
tion of these desires or defeat the machinations of their enemies. 
Some seals were supposed to confer long life, secure the wearer 
from misery and confer great fortunes. Others conferred the 
power of conveying to man through dreams what he wanted to 
know. 

The Fourth Table from the Book of Moses was the most 
important one, and that the settlers openly availed themselves 
of. It was that governing the Spirits of the Earth and its treas- 
ures. If a well was to be dug, Huntsicker came at night, the air 
was filled with red lights and fantastic shapes, a huge divining 
rod was thrown by him ; the next day they dug at the spot and 
lo ! the best of water and plenty of it appeared. 

To wear the seal of the sun was popular, too. That conferred 
wealth, honor, and power through its strength; and the spirit 
of the planet Mercury had helped find the ore, in after years 
burned at the furnace at Hecla, and the potters clay near 
what is now Ringgold. The charming of snakes was taught from 
the Talmud and numerous incantations were sought for at 
Huntsicker's hands; the lovesick swains, disappointed in their 
hopes, resorted to him for love-powders and lotions; he cured 
sick headaches, and other diseases, too, with charms and pow- 
ders. The evil was growing and in vain did the clergy and 
more cool-headed among the people caution and berate the set- 
tlers. Huntsicker was feared, but he was thoroughly believed 
in by everybody. To doubt him was to doubt the evidence of 
their own senses; to not credit what they had seen with their 
own eyes. 

One day Frau Huntsicker came over to the Peterpin 



®lti Scfjuglki'll STales. 61 



farmhouse. She was of a very friendly nature and had upon 
several previous occasions deplored the fact that people dreaded 
them so, and called then witches. Herr Huntsicker, she said, 
^'had had the whereabouts of the Sixth and Seventh Books of 
Moses revealed to him in a dream. He had secured them from 
fire and among scorpions at the bottom of a great mountain and 
had been commanded to use them to rid the earth of wickedness. 
He did not like to do it. He was afraid, but it was God's com- 
mand. They had nothing to do with the Devil except to exor- 
cise him and drive him away." "No one prayed and fasted," 
she said, ''as much as Herr Huntsicker.'' 

On this particular day she said, 'the Herr was sick in bed ; 
he took cold the night before while out laying the evil spirits 
in men and forcing them to return stolen goods," which he 
frequently did. The negro was away and she could not do the 
chores herself; would they send some one over from the farm?" 
"Madam" Peterpiu, as the Fran called her, said, "they were 
all at work at the oats except Peter, who she thought was too 
small," but the Frau gave him a glance and Peter at once arose 
from his copybook in which he was making the great round 
German script letters and said, "he would go," calculating 
mentally what he would do on Christmas with the coin she 
was sure to give him. The Frau preceded him and he re- 
mained to change into his working smock and shoes that he wore 
for choring. 

There was no one about when Peter arrived at the Hunt- 
sickers, but he would not be afraid and boldly he walked up to 
the door with the kettle of fresh buttermilk in hand that his 
mother had given him for the sick man. He had never been in- 



62 ©Iti ^dniolkill SEalfS. 



side the House, but had heard much about it, and he reconnoitered 
the inside through the crack in the door. Yes, there was the large 
black book-case filled with books and yellow manuscripts. The 
twelve wooden rocking chairs with their gay cushions were 
gently swaying to and fro, and at the foot of each lay a black 
cat. A large corner clock ticked solemnly, and in the far corner, 
on the other side of the hearth, where a bright fire was crackling 
and over which hung the silver kettle in which the spirit lotions 
were brewed, stood a large high-posted, silk-curtained bed, and 
in it Herr Huntsicker with a funny high-peaked night cap 
on his head, his yellow claw-like hands Avith the big seal rings 
clasped in front of him on the heavy skins and silken coverlets, 
for' he w^as "sweating out" the cold and chills. 

Just then, leaning too hard upon the door, it lurched open 
and Peter, half falling, sprawled into the room and in his con- 
fusioii he said, as he would at home to old Tom, '"Scat." The 
twelve black cats that had been lying each on their own rugs in 
front of their rockers flew up. Spitting and with tails in the 
air, the largest one mounted the top of the corner clock, the 
others ran up the wall to the beams overhead and glowered down 
at Peter, snarling, spitting and yelling. Peter recovered him- 
self, however, without spilling the buttermilk and began, hat in 
hand, in his best German, a little speech to the Herr. They were 
the witches, he knew, but they were only black cats now, he 
thought ; he would not be afraid of them. Just then the Frau 
appeared. She, too, had apparently changed her visiting black 
silk for her more ordinary everyday garb. 

The cow was soon milked, the kindling wood split and 
brought in, the numerous chores about the stableyard per- 



mti ^cf}nulkill Zalte. 63 



formed, hay taken down from the loft, and everything that a 
little hoy could do, was done for the Fran that she might get 
along until the morrow wdien, if the negro did not come back 
or the Herr get well, he would go over again. She would send 
jSTero, the big black dog. to tell him. ^'The dog would talk in 
his own way," said the Frau, "and he would know, but if he 
would bring a couple of pails of ^vater from the spring, supper 
M'ould be ready and he must eat some before he went." 

Peter w^ould rather have gone home for his evening meal, 
but he did not like to offend his kind hostess. His heart, how- 
ever, misgave him when he went into the living room, where the 
table was already set, and there were the twelve black cats, each 
in his or her own seat, blue china plate, knife, fork, and spoon 
and a pewter mug in front of each, all sitting waiting on their 
hind legs with their front paw^s crossed on the edge of the table. 
The Fran took the foot of the table, the head remained vacant 
for the Herr, and Peter sat at her side where he felt toleralily 
secure. There was a moment's pause and Peter said his little 
Gorman grace mentally as a means of protection against the 
witches and then the Frau clapped her hands and the cats all 
fell to w'ith a gusto and ate the porridge from the china plates 
and drank the milk from the mugs. Peter was a country boy 
with a good healthy appetite and there were some delicacies 
on the table not ahvays visible on the table at the Peterpin 
home, where there was a large family and plenty of wholesome 
food, but not many dainties. 

The Frau gave him a cup of coffee, which was a forbidden 
luxury for the Peterpin children, and he drank it as he had seen 
his father do, last of all for his dessert. When he finished it 
he saw a thick sediment of something white in the bottom of 



64 ©ItJ Sdjuglktll (JEalcs 



the cup. It flashed over him in an instant, it was a witch pow- 
der ; he would be turned into a black cat, too. In a flash he had 
left the table, was out of the door, and ran as fast as his short 
legs would carry him over the meadow, up the hill, until he came 
to the large pine tree that stood at the head of the lane that led 
into their own pastures and here he lay down and parted com- 
pany with every atom of his good supper, leaving it under the 
tree (with the story of which he had intended to excite the 
envy of the other children), and oh! how white and sick he 
was when he entered the home kitchen. By degrees the tale of 
his undoing Avas wormed out of him and the mother laughingly 
told him that, "the white powder at the bottom of the cup was 
only sugar which he should have stirred up to sweeten the 
coffee." 

About this time Father Peterpin had a brand new black 
oil-cloth cover, wagon-top and all stolen from the farm wagon in 
the wagon-shed, attached to the barn. He related the circum- 
stance to Herr Huntsicker, who volunteered to get it returned. 
The Ilerr wished no money for it, he said. His clients never 
paid him outright, but left their scant cash on the gate post. 
"He dared not ask anything, but they must live, too," said the 
Herr. "Peterpin had been kind to him and he would like to 
repay him." Xow the farmer had been most pronounced in his 
protests against the belief in the magic art. But Huntsicker 
said he should pray for the return of the wagon cover and he 
would do the same; and that disarmed Peterpin and he con- 
sented. 

The children were all safely stowed away in bed and the 
"Mutter" was sitting at the light of a rush tallow-dip candle 



©ItJ Sd^uglktll Ealts. 65 



reading her Bible and prayer-book, for they were staunch church 
people, when Peterpin betook himself to the upper bam chamber 
to watch for himself. 

The old clock in the kitchen had struck the hour of twelve 
and he was begimiing to feel drowsy, when he felt a slight stir 
in the air and a mellow yellow light was cast over the surround- 
ings and there was Huntsicker with his head bent forward com- 
ing toward the barn, reading from the black book of Moses. 
Huntsicker made a large circle in front of the wagon shed witli 
the rod he carried in his hand, and within it numerous sigTis and 
figures; his incantations grew louder and louder and as he pro- 
ceeded the air was peopled with mysterious fiery shapes. 

All at once flashes of lightning lighted up the scene and a 
loud report like a cannon, or thunder, filled the air and a huge 
wagon wheel of red fire rolled down the hill, followed by a 
motley crew stumbling as they ran and drawn on apparently 
against their will. Who they were Peterpin could not tell, but he 
said mentally, again, the "Long Swampers." In the midst of 
them they carried the wagon-top and cover and others brought 
pitch-forks, bags of grain, farming implements and other articles 
that had likewise been stolen from the farm and which Peter- 
pin had either never missed, forgotten or overlooked. They 
deposited them in the wagon-shed and withdrew muttering and 
cursing as they went. The big drops of perspiration stood out 
on the farmer's face and hands, but he kept his post at the barn 
loft window until they were gone and Huntsicker had obliter- 
ated the figures in the strange circle, and he, too, gradually dis- 
appeared in the same mellow yellow light he came in, and 
that finally died out, towards his o\\ii home. Then Peterpin 



66 ®lt3 ScfjUDlfeill CaUg. 



retired, too, to tell his good wife. Madam Peterpin hinted 
that he might have slept and dreamed it all, but acknowl- 
edged that she, too, plainly saw the yellow light and flashes of 
lightning and heard the strange noises but feared to look out 
further. 

At early daylight, after a sleepless night for both, they re- 
paired to the barn, Avhere they discovered that the things enum- 
erated by Peterpin Avere all there and stowed in the wagon 
shed. 

Shortly after the Huntsickers disappeared without any 
sign of their belongings being left in the cabin. No one had 
seen them come and no one had seen them go. The belief ex- 
isted for a long time among the country folks that Huntsicker 
was in league with the Devil and that he and the Frau had been 
spirited away by the same spirits that they had conjured with 
just once too often. 

The Orwigsburg Postmaster, however, said that Herr 
Huntsicker had disappeared just after receiving a large ofiicial- 
looking envelope from Germany. The belief gained credence 
after a time that he was a political refugee and had been in dis- 
favor with the German government, but was finally pardoned. 
Huntsicker shunned and feared all strangers and would remain 
in hiding for days at a time. He was doubtless a learned man 
and practised the experiments of chemistry and astrology, with 
magnetism and the use of pyrotechnics, on the honest, but 
simple country folks to mystify them and to keep them at a dis- 
tance; and perhaps the results of the use of his occult powers 
served to while away the time of his enforced exile and contrib- 
uted to his own personal enjoyment. 



©It) Sdjuglkill Caks. 67 



Huntsicker and the lame negro were probably one, for 
neither was ever seen when the other was present. The necro- 
mancer possibly thought himself above being seen perform- 
ing menial labor. It might detract from his prestige as a ma- 
gician and it might be he had never performed it in the old 
country. Thus Huntsicker's powers might be explained away 
in the light of the present day, but he was no mythical person- 
age, and many more stories of what he performed are still re- 
lated among the descendants of those who lived in West Bruns- 
wick township in the early days of Schuylkill County. 



UNWRITTEN HISTORY OF ORWIGSBURG 



The Court House was erected in 1815, the cost of the build- 
ing was $5,000 ; before it was built, a Court of Quarter Sessions 
was held in the public house of Adam Eeiifsnyder (Arcadian 
Hotel), on the third Monday of December, 1811, before Presi- 
dent Judge Robert Porter, when the following attorneys were 
admitted : George Wolff, Charles Evans, Frederick Smith, Wm. 
Witman, James B, Hubley, John Spayd, John W. Collins, M. 
J. Biddle, Samuel Baird, and John Ewing. Courts were au- 
thorized to be held in the same place until the building of the 
Court House was completed. 

Wm. Green, Sheriff of Schuylkill County, reported the 
precept directed to him as duly executed. Township Constables 



68 ®lti ScljugHuU QTales. 



were appoiuted and a grand inquest of twenty-one citizens were 
sworn and affirmed. Sheriff Green Avas the grandfather of the 
late Judge D. B. Green, of the Schuylkill County Bench and 
Bar. He removed to Orwig'shurg from McKeansburg. He 
built the old Orwigsburg Hotel, erected about 1815, at the 
northwest corner of the big square known as the "Rising Sun" 
Hotel. The Arcadian Hotel on the southeast comer was built 
prior to this, in 1796, and was known as Orwig's and Reiff Sny- 
der's. In front and on the sides of both of these public houses 
stood the town pumps. John Kobb owned the hotel directly op- 
posite lieiff Snyder's. The jail was not built until IS 14. The 
house two doors below the Court House, owned by Associate 
Judge Rauscli and subsequently occupied as a residence by 
Dr. Henry Haeseler, was utilized as a lock-up. The cellar 
was used as a prison cell, the windows being protected with 
iron gratings. The prisoners were handcuffed and chained 
to stumps of trees which had been left in the o-round. iVmong 
the first Judges of the Schuylkill Courts were : President Judge 
Kidder, of Wilkes-Barre, who came every three months to at- 
tend court, and Associate Judges Yost, Rausch and Jacob 
Hammer. The latter resigned when the Court House was re- 
moved to Pottsville, not desiring to leave Orwigsburg. These 
Judges were all appointed by the State and were subsequently 
succeeded by Judge E. O. Parry and eTudge Hegins, the latter 
■of whom it will be remembered was afflicted with curvature of 
the spine. 

With the building of the Court House in 1815 came many 
new citizens, the legal lights of the County ; Christopher Loeser, 
considered one of the best lawyers in Pennsylvania and a sol- 



<Blti Sdjimlfetll SEaks. 69 



dier of the War of 1812; John Bannan, Wm. B. Potts, E. O. 
I'arrv, Wni. Witman, lawyer and Justice of the Peace. 
'Squire Witman was married to a sister of Mrs. E. O. Parry. 
John P. Hobart, James H. Graeff, J. W. Roseberry, these were, 
with several others, the leading lawyers of that period. Mrs. 
Roseberry, a widow, and mother of the above, kept a private 
school for girls in the town. There were no public schools then. 
There came to Orwigsburg from the South a widow named 
Bartlett, wuth two daughters named Louisa and Lavina. The 
fonner married Christopher Loeser, Esq., the latter became 
Mrs. Charlemagne Tower, whose husband, a large owner of coal 
lands, was one of the only two millionaires Schuylkill County 
has produced and whose family history is too well known to 
need recapitulation here. Charlemagne Tower, Ambassador 
to Germany, is a son of this union. 



NOTABLE CITIZENS 



Orwigsburg was the pioneer town of the County and had 
many notable citizens during its early years. Edward B. Ilub- 
ley represented the district of Berks and Schuylkill County in 
Congress. He was a Democrat. Francis Hubley sat on the 
bench as Associate Judge. George Rahn, grandfather of the 
late C F. Rahn and father of Charles Rahn, Clerk of the 
Courts, was Associate Judge, Sheriff and Prothonotary. John 



70 ©llJ Scfmglkill 8EaIc0. 



M. Bickel was State Treasurer and County Treasurer. Frank 
Hughes, Attorney General of the State; Jacob Hammer, Asso- 
ciate Judge, member of Legislature, Clerk of Sessions, Register 
and Kecorder and Prothonotary. John W. Roseberry, member 
of the Legislature. Michael Graeff, hotelkeeper, also a Legisla- 
tive member. Charles Frailey was a State Senator. Associate 
Judge and Prothonotary. 

Of these, Jacob Hammer and John W. Roseberry were 
Whigs. John T. Werner, editor of the first Whig paper pub- 
lished in OrAvigsburg, which he purchased from a Lebanon 
County man, who ran it for a short time, was elected Sheriff. 
The "Freiheitz Press" enjoyed great popularity for its fearless, 
outspoken opinions. Sheriff Werner was subsequently re-elected 
to the office of Sheriff and was succeeded by his son, the late 
J. F. Werner, P. & R. Land Agent. Sheriff Rausch was a 
native of Ringgold. 

The early merchants were, the Schalls, Hammers, Becks 
and Jacob Huntzinger. Other familiar business people were the 
Graeffs, Linders, Schafers, Zulichs, Shoeners, Bodeys, Kimmels. 
Fegleys, Hummels, Hoflfmans, Dr. Benjamin Becker, Dr. Doug- 
lass, Dr. Medlar and others, whose names have been obliterated 
from the scrolls of time, but yet live among the memories of 
their descendants. 

The surroundings of Orwigsburg belong to one of the rich- 
est agricultural sections of the State, The fertility of these 
lands has been enriched to a high degree of cultivation by the 
industry of the farmers, many of whom have become well-to-do, 
if not wealthy, through the fertility and production of their 
broad acres. The Kimmels, Hoys, Deiberts, Fegleys, Folmers, 



©Ill Scfjuglfeill Eahs. 71 



Yosts, Albrights, Buehlers, Moyers, Scheips, Kemmerlinge, 
Potts, Zerbes, Wagners, Scbollenbergers, Matzs, Krebs and 
Haeselers, Avere among the early tillers of the soil. Some of 
their descendants of the third generation are living upon the 
same broad acres tilled by their forefathers. 



THE LOCAL MILITARY 



There were two military companies in Orwigsburg; the 
Greys were the oldest in point of service. John M. Bickel was 
captain. Jacob Hammer, too, served six years; one more year 
would have freed him from military duty. Fourth of July 
was a great day and celebrated at least by the military. On one 
occasion when the Declaration of Independence was read Jacob 
Hammer made a speech on the sentiment, "The land we live 
in." Those were great days. Stands were erected in the public 
square, where gingerbread, small beer and peanuts were sold. 
The day usually ended with a dance and "frolic" at the hotels. 
If the farmers were not too busy haying they came as far as 
from Lewistown ("Tuyfel's Luch"), for the day and those 
south who did not travel to Hamburg came to Orwigsburg. The 
girls walked barefoot until near the town, where they might have 
been seen washing and dressing their pedal extremities at some 
of the many meadow brooks. ^Vhether this was to save their 



©II) ^ctjuglkill (ITaUs. 



shoes or because they were accustomed to it is not explained, but 
perhaps they were actuated by both motives. 



BATTALION DAY AT ORWIGSBURG 



It Avas just after the county seat had been removed from 
Orwigsburg to Pottsville. ^Naturally the ancient burghers felt 
hurt over the removal and sought for some means to retrieve 
their lost prestige. They could not retain their population, but 
they could still draw crowds on Battalion Day. Pottsville at 
least should not take from them the Battalion. 

What a day that holiday was. Fourth of July was nothing 
to be compared with it. The rural swains came from far and 
wide for the great event, some even from Womelsdorf, which 
was a great concession, for Berks County, too, had its "Batta- 
lion," and the rivalry was great between it and Schuylkill. It 
was then that the busy farmer took his day off and local happen- 
ings were counted from before or after Battalion Day. 

The country boys and girls who walked about hand in hand, 
carrying their knotted handkerchiefs in which were tied the 
precious "lebe kuchen," ""grundniss," or other dainties of the 
day, which in some cases included "knock wurst und kimmel 
brod" from the beer counter or crackers from the oysterman's 
stand — all were in their happiest vein. The oysterman was col- 
ored and came from Long Swamp. He w^as considered an im- 
portant man in those parts and was seldom seen outside of the 



©lU ^cf}uslf^tll eak0. 73 



Swamp only at Battalion and at the vendnes. It was rumored 
that he had once cooked oysters at a stand in Reading, and that 
])rior to these festal days he hitched up and brought the bivalves 
from that city, from the results of the sale of which and the 
]~jeddling of herbs and a medicine he concocted he made his 
slender living. The hot stews were made of the thinnest and 
bluest skim milk, with a lonesome looking oyster or two floating 
around in the bowl. But they were a great feature. 

Pink lemonade was on sale and beer was plenty. A well- 
known Court-house oflicial from Pottsville, who formerly lived 
in Orwigsburg, was heard to remark that, "you could make 
money by remaining in Orwigsburg over night, as the beer was 
two cents cheaper than in Pottsville and the mugs half again as 
large.-' The interest, too, in the "Frolic" at the Hotels, which 
would close the day's festivities, w^as never greater. 

The chief attraction of Battalion Day was the military. 
The Young America drum corps was only youthful in name and 
the veteran drummers and fifcrs strutted about with a martial 
tread that would have been hard to counterfeit. Banners floated 
about and the old flags hung high on their flag staffs, manipu- 
lated by their sturdy carriers, who would not have flinched had 
they been twice as heavy or the march a day's length, for had 
not they or their sires done the same in the days of 1812 or '76 
for the liberty of their beloved coiuitry ? 

On this particular Battalion Day everything was being 
done to outshine all previous ones, for was not the reputation of 
the oldest town in the County at stake ? Should hated Potts- 
ville have everything, even to this great, first and only real gala 
event of the year, in Schuylkill County ? Xever ! 



74 ©III Scf)uglktll STales. 



The "Greys," the crack Orwigsburg military company, 
strutted about in their well-worn regimentals and every man in. 
the company felt as if the safety of his country and the success 
of Battalion Day depended upon him alone and did his duty 
accordingly. The drills began early and all the movements of 
camp life from sunrise to sunset were carefully carried out by 
the militia. 

A new soldier company, however, had been formed by a 
younger element and they were alike the pride and despair of 
their Captain, a veteran of the war of 1812. 

Henry llheinheimer was a *'Pruss," who came to America 
in his young manhood and entered the army for the defense of 
his adopted country in the war of 1812. He was a good soldier 
and a brave man, and although there was but little fighting he 
came out of the contest a corporal, a fact of which he could not 
have been prouder of had he been made a general. "Henny" 
had wandered to Orwigsburg after the war and lived in a little 
two-roomed cottage in the outskirts, Avhere he maintained him- 
self w^ith an occasional day's work on the farms around and 
about the town and with the manufacture of a home-made brand 
of coffee essence. If the essence was made of burnt rje and 
beans and cheap molasses it was purer and better of its kind 
than any of the concoctions of the present time that masquer- 
ade under the highflown name of superior brands of coffee and 
often, too, come under the ban of the Health Boards. 

He was known everywhere as "Henny wot makes the ess- 
ence" and was popular all through the country, where he could 
obtain a night's lodging or a meal anytime among the farmers, 
in return for which he rewarded his entertainers with stories of 



mti SrtjuglkiU QTalcs. 75 



the war and his experiences in army lite and at the old home 
across the sea. 

When he had a hatch of the mixtnre ready he packed the 
tin boxes in his old, black oil-cloth knapsack with its crossed 
straps, donned his battered silk hat and with the few necessaries 
he needed en ronte tied in his red bandanna and hung from the 
end of his staff, which he carried over his shoulder like a musket, 
he was equipped for his long tramps. 

He had drilled the country bumpkins and yokels until flesh 
and blood could stand no more. His was the inventive genius 
that placed a straw on one foot of each of the awkward squad 
and a wisp of hay on the other, and instead of the "right" and 
''left" which they could not learn had used "hay-foot, straw- 
foot," over and over again until he was so hoarse he could shout 
no more. But the thought of Battalion Day and of being sal- 
uted as Captain Bheinheimer sustained him. 

The sun arose bright on the fateful day and the crowds in 
wagons, on horseback and on foot began arriving early. The 
flag was run up the staff in front of the old Court House, guard 
was mounted, the drums beat, the fifes played, and the usual 
drills and tactics of a day in camp followed. As the hour of 
])arade drew near, the wind changed and a heavy storm began 
brooding in the west. The veterans had acquitted themselves 
nobly and with the same precision that veterans alone acquire 
and the new company's turn came. 

Captain Bheinheimer swelled with pride ; now he would be 
justified and see his reward. Their "left, left, left, right, left," 
could not have been better, their wheeling was unsurpassed, the 
manual drill and tactics of the new Company would follow and 



76 ®Iti ^cfjuglkill Caleg. 



certainly all would be well. But it was just at this juncture 
the clouds began to thicken, the sky grew dark, gusts of wind 
came up, and the big rain drops began to patter among the leaves 
of the trees and a heavy storm broke over the town. People 
sought the friendly shelter of the surrounding doorways and 
over-anxious and solicitous relatives who had scurried home at 
the first warning of the oncoming downfall had returned laden 
with umbrellas Avhich some of them pressed upon their offspring 
in the new soldier company. As the rain fell the awkward 
squad raised the umbrellas and the confusion was great. 

Twice had the gallant captain given the order, but with the 
crowd pressing down upon the scene, the guards could not keep 
them back at the point of the bayonet, and the raising of uili- 
brellas by some of the raw recruits the confusion Avas great and 
the scene indescribable. 

Captain Rheinheimer would make one more effort. Draw- 
ing himself up to his utmost height and in his most stentorian 
tone of voice he shouted : 

''Umbrellas oder no umbrellas, I tell jow; Shoulder arms !" 



REMINISCENCE 



Daniel De Frehn, of Pottsville, relates the following: It 
was during a term of court in the seat of justice at Orwigsburg. 
'Squire Witraan was approached by a fellow lawyer who asked 



©Itj Scl)uglkill EnltQ. 77 



him the time of day. The 'JSquire felt in his waistcoat pocket 
for his watch when he discovered it missing and said : 

''I changed clothes this morning and left my watch in my 
other vest." After a time he bethought himself again, and being 
inconvenienced by the want of the chronometer sent a man from 
conrt with a message that the bearer should be entrnsted with 
his watch which he had forgotten. 

The man returned and said the maid-servant had already 
given the watch to a man, who said the 'Squire had sent him for 
it. 'Squire Witman had doubtless been overheard. The thief 
made good his escape and the watch was never recovered. 



THE SOMNAMBULISTS 



It was before the 'Squire married Katrina; she was only 
seventeen and had been an inveterate sleep-walker from her 
youth. Her brother John was not much better and between the 
two there was not much peace about the house. Neither might 
walk about for months, but sometimes both got up in one night 
and wandered around and made times very lively for the mother 
who was alone with them much of the time. That is, if the 
aged gTandsire was not considered or the other children taken 
into account. The father was pursuing his business in the 
distant city of Buffalo and only returned home at long intervals, 
for those were the davs of slow and uncertain locomotion. 



78 ©ItJ ScJjuglkill Caks. 



In vain did the mother caution and admonish. It did little 
or no good and matters seemed to have reached their climax 
when Katrina was discovered trying to climb into the smoke 
house one night, where she might have smothered if the spring 
lock on the door had closed on her. After that she was locked 
in her room, which was a low, half-storv chamber over the 
kitchen. ^Matters had apparently quieted down with Katrina, 
but not so with John. 

He had been engaged in driving a balky young horse to 
and fro, from the 'Squire's new mill, in West Brunswick. The 
horse had a freak of standing still ; nothing could induce him to 
move, and then of starting just as abruptly. Threats, blows, 
coaxing, nothiug availed wdien these tantrums came on, and John 
was determined to break him. He thought and talked of noth- 
ing else by dav and on this particular occasion must have 

dreamed of it. 

One night there was a terrible noise and thumpety, thump, 
in the house. It continued from time to time and the family 
all turned out of their beds to see what had happened. John 
slept in the attic and the noise appeared to emanate from the 
front part of the hou'^e. At the head of th? stairs in the large 
old-fashioned hall stood a big wooden chest Avith drawers and 
old-fashioned brass handles. John had imagined the chest to 
be the balky horse. The horse would not go and in his zeal 
he overturned the chest and pushed it with all his might. It 
slid face down the entire flight of stairs. He mounted the 
chest and received a blow from contact witii the wall below that 
knocked him senseless, rendering liim ill for several days. 

Katrina had not 1 een heard from fnr some time. Locking 



(Blis S;c\}\iv\hi\\ STaks. 79 



her in seemed an effectual preventive. It was during moon- 
light nights that her sleep-walking was worst and the mother 
said, "she was affected by the moon," Katrina herself was very 
much ashamed of her escapades and besought the family not 
to mention them before the 'Squire or his family. One beauti- 
ful moonlight summer night, however, she awoke suddenly to 
find that she was not cured, and Oh ! horrors, that, that worst of 
dreams that she had always feared had been realized and become 
only too true. 

There she was, clad only in her night dress, barefooted and 
bareheaded, walking on the main street of the town, south of 
the big square toward Reading. The stage from Sunbury to 
Philadelphia passed through Orwigsburg about two o'clock at 
night. The night was almost as bright as day, the passengers 
had seen her; it was indeed their hooting and jeering that had 
awakened her. She had climbed over a low porch roof from 
her bedroom window, dowTi an arbor and made her way several 
squares to the spot where she was rudely awakened. Poor 
Katrina ! how many bitter tears she shed over that event, but she 
never walked any more in her sleep, at least not outside of the 
house. The 'Squire married her shortly after, and it is to be 
presumed that he was wakeful enough to prevent it. 



COURT HOUSE REMOVED 



In 1844 the business of the court had increased to such 
an extent that an addition was built, in which was located the 



80 ^It) ScljuglktU Calcs. 



several county offices. With the discovery of coal in the County, 
the coal industry eclipsed that of the commercial interests of 
the agricultural districts. On December 1, 1851, tlie County 
seat was removed to Pottsville. With the removal came a large 
influx of the citizens of Orwigsburg, the lawyers and others 
connected wdth the workings of the legal business of the County. 
This was in accordance with an act of the Legislature which 
gave a majority vote in favor — 3,551 being for and 3,091 
against the movement. 

A movement for the removal was started as early as 1831. 
A meeting was held at the Exchange Hotel, Pottsville, on 
J^ovember 19, at which Benjamin Pott, Burd Patterson, 
Thomas Sillymau, Jacob Seitzinger and John C. Offerman were 
appointed a committee to solicit subscriptions to defray the 
expense of erecting public buildings in Pottsville. The people 
of Orwigsburg fought the movement. A meeting was held at 
the Court House, where these men were denounced as "idlers" 
and ''lot holders," and so strenuous was the objection that it was 
not until 1842 that it took definite shape. 

The first bill passed by the Legislature for the removal, 
was declared unconstitutional and after the election a second 
bill was passed and Pottsville was declared the County seat. 
The second Court House was erected on ground purchased from 
the George Farquhar estate and the building was erected 
through the contributions of the citizens, and the total cost was 
$30,000. 

Two men were executed for murder during the establish- 
ment of the seat of Justice in Orwigsburg. The first white man 
hung in Schuylkill County expiated his crime for the murder 



©Ill ScfjnulfetU SDales. 81 



of his grandparents. The other, a colored man named Rigg, 
was hung for murdering an Irishman. There were extenuating 
circumstances in the latter case. John Bannan, Esq., the lawyer 
for the defense, considered the provocation that led up to the 
killing very great, and frequently was heard to remark that 
if his client had been a white man he would not have been made 
to suffer the extreme penalty of the law. So great was Mr. Ben- 
nan's sympathy excited for the doomed man, that on the day of 
Rigg's execution the Bannan mansion, on the opposite corner 
from the Court House, was closed as if for a death within its 
precincts. 

Henry Hammer, of Minersville, eighty years old, relates 
that at the time of one of these executions, he was clerking for 
his uncles, Eli and Elijah Hammer, who kept store in Potts- 
ville in the building now occupied by P. E. Brennan, as the 
Boston store. The whole county turned out and went to Or- 
wigsburg to witness the hanging, and the proprietors of the store 
Avith others drove to the scene. There was nothing doing that 
afternoon; Pottsville was empty and trade w^as suspended. 
There was a Camp Meeting in session at the Lessigs, half-way 
between Orwigsburg and Schuylkill Haven, and the young clerk 
and a friend of his had planned to spend the evening there with 
the young ladies whom they afterward married. 

In the middle of the afternoon they took time by the fore- 
lock, closed up the store for the night_, hitched up and drove 
to the Camp Meeting. Just before reaching Lessig's they en- 
countered the crowd returning from the execution ; among them 
were the Hammers. What censure the young employees re- 
ceived from their elders for betraying the trust reposed in them, 
6 



82 ®lti Scfjuglhill (ITalfs. 



and how much of it they deserved, may be left to the imagina- 
tion of the reader. 

Frederick Hesser, who served in the Revolutionary War as 
a drummer boy and suffered with the struggling patriots through 
the hardships of Valley Forge, was court crier. It was his cus- 
tom to call the court together with the beating of the drum. He 
is buried in Orwigsburg. 

The people of the early days were very superstitious and 
after the hangings, believed firmly that Sculp's Hill was 
haunted. Francis B. Bannan, Esq., relates, that, "near the 
scene of the execution there was a large board fence. It was 
said if anyone approached that fence at midnight and touched 
the middle board with his lips the apparitions of the murderers 
would appear. Being of an investigating turn of mind he tried 
it, but saw nothing. 

On the Lizard Creek road there was an old German who 
was desirous of buying a valuable farm. He tried to depreci- 
ate its value by gaining for it a reputation of its being haunted. 
He played ghost himself, and was detected in the act. He had 
hired a Long Swamp negro, who, with himself, Avas robed in 
white ; they walked about the farm and woods with head pieces 
or masks of phosphorescent wood. The eyes were cut out some- 
thing like the lanterns the boys make nowadays. He did not 
get the farm. 

"Know anything about the first jail?" "Why, of course, I 
do," said Mr. Bannan (who has the reputation of being some- 
thing of a wag and an inveterate joker). 

"Why, I was a prisoner in it myself once. It was when 
Sheriff Woolison had charge of it, and who with his wife lived 



©Itj Scf)uglfeill STakg. 83 



in one side, in the residence part. I was only a little shaver 
then, and thin and small for my age. I was mischievous and 
Mr. Woolison loved to tease me. One day, after I had been 
troublesome around the jail, he took me and locked me up in one 
of the new cells, and looking at his watch, said, 

^You must remain in there one hour, when I will come back 
and let you out, if you will promise to be a good boy.' 

"I gTew^ somewhat sober after he turned the key and time 
seemed long. The thought occurred that I might vrriggle 
through the hole left to pass food through for the prisoners. It 
was somewhat larger than those in the jail of to-day, and the 
grating was up. I crawled up and came out feet first. The door 
was open; I fled. After that the jail was not one of my stamp- 
ing grounds any longer." 



A GHOST STORY 



Superstition was rife in the region of the Blue Mountain 
ridge and West Brunswick township was not exempt from it. 
All sorts of stories circulated among the country people and 
many declared they had seen ghosts in the vicinity of the old 
AVhite Church that stood on Sculp's hill above Orwigsburg, 
which was then the county town of Schuylkill. 

A colored man named Rigg had been hung there for mur- 
der, one of the first two murderers executed in Schuylkill 



84 ©ItJ Sc!)uslki'n STalcs. 



County. The scaffold bad been erected in tbe jail yard and tbe 
settlers from far and wide flocked to the scene of the banging. 
Tbe culprit j^rayed and begged for mercy but tbe Sheriff and his 
assistants turned a deaf ear to bis entreaties. He was buried 
at midnight outside of tbe sacred limits of the church yard and 
tbe country people were much exercised over it. Then as now 
there were those who were opposed to hanging and none would 
venture past the spot, especially after nightfall. It was de- 
clared that a clanking of chains could be heard and loud moans ; 
and some even asserted that they bad seen the colored man, 
dressed all in white, approach and with clasped hands petition 
for "Mercy! Mercy!" 

Peter Peterpin had gone to O to attend catechetical 

instructions in the church, for the Mother was 'Ticformed" and 
belonged to tbe old White Church and the Father was a staunch 
Lutheran and a member of the red brick church which stood 
below tbe jail near tbe Court House and in the heart of tbe 
town; and tbe children were all confirmed when they reached 
tbe proper age. Peter was twelve years old. It was on a Sat- 
urday afternoon, in the late Fall. The farmers were in tbe 
habit, some of them, of getting such small supplies as they 
needed at either of the three stores in the great open Court 
House square — which has never since been equalled in dimen- 
sions in any town in the county, Pottsville not even excepted. 

Peter had a commission for his mother at the store. The 
"Parrah" was a circuit rider and had been rather late in coming 
to town. He lived at Hamburg and made the tri,p, once in two 
weeks, coming on horseback with his sermons or such books as 
be used in the ritual and services of the Sabbath, and bis black 



©Iti Scibuglkill EaizQ. 85 



but rather rusty gown, stowed away in the saddle bags that hung 
over the old gray nag. The boy was pleased that he had been 
able to answer all the questions that had been given him and if 
he could onlv have gone home with the other bovs and girls from 
his part of the country, all would have been well. It w^as grow- 
ing dark when he got through and he looked hurriedly among 
the few yokels left in the store to see if there was anyone from 
his locality, but there was none. 

He kept up his courage, however, and resolved to not think 
of anything and get past the haunted spot where lay the lonely 
grave, and perhaps he might avoid that terrible colored ghost 
he felt sure was lurking about somewhere. He tried to think 
of other and more pleasing things, as he reached the place, and 
even longed to whistle to keep up his courage but dared not for 
fear of attracting the ghost. He had just congratulated him- 
self that he ha<l cleared the spot when he heard a slight noise 
from the bushes on the road side and the patter of feet. 

AVhat was it ? And oh, how near was it ? 

Already running, he increased his steps, but still he heard 
the dull tread, tread, behind him. He dared not look back but 
ran on at the top of his speed. Once he thought he had out- 
distanced his pursuer and slowed up to breathe a little, when 
glancing over his shoulder he saw" a white form and two fiery 
eyeballs gleaming like red hot coals in the darkness and he 
spurred himself on to renewed effort. 

It was a mile or a little more from the church to their own 
lane. Peter had often counted the steps, and he knew he had 
gone almost half of the distance and would soon reach their 
own "veldt," where he could tiu-n in and reduce the distance; he 



86 ©It) Scf)ii2Hull Calfs. 



would feel safe on their own land ; and surely that dreadful 
ghost would not follow further. The ghost certainly must go 
back ; others would j)ass his grave and he would have to attend to 
them. 

Peter could clear the fence at one bound. He had often 
done it before. But, alas ! when he attempted it, hampered by 
the articles he was carrying which he knew he must bring home 
with him, his foot caught on the top rail and he fell on his face 
on the other side and the horrid creature was over, too, and on 
top of him, pawing him and licking his hands. He did not 
protest but feebly lay there awaiting his end. Hearing a low 
playful growl he took courage to peep out of the corner of his 
eye and there stood ''Wasser," the old white farm dog, who had 
probably gone to meet him, or else was out on one of his noc- 
turnal trips for the carcasses he persisted in dragging to his 
kennel. The dog stood by wagging his tail and Peter in the ex- 
cess of his emotion placed his arms around his neck and kissed 
him ; and who can wonder if he cried big tears of gladness and 
relief. 

Peter's ghost story was one long related and enjoyed by the 
Peterpin family. 



DIRT OR SOURCROUT 



Sourcrout and panhause, or scrapple, are noted dishes 
among the people of Pennsylvania. Yankees, East and West, 
may sneer at the mixture of the latter or the lusciousness of 



©It! ScJjuoIfeill Cales. 87 



sourcrout, but the famed New England boiled dinner of beef, 
carrots, cabbage, potatoes, etc., is not to be compared on a cold 
winter day to the culinary triumph of a well-cooked dish of 
sourcrout. The piece-de-resistance of side-pork cooked as tender 
as a chicken and flanked with a side-dish of flaky mashed pota- 
toes and followed with a cup of coffee and a piece of home-made 
mince pie. 

It was just on such a cold wintry day that the usual number 
of loungers congregated about the huge cannon stove in the bar- 
room of Shoener's hotel at Orwigsburg. It was snowing and 
blowing hard outside and the tobacco chewers and smokers sat 
about the huge iron circle around the stove and bespattered the 
sawdust ring in their aim for the large spittoon within, with 
more than their usual zest and enjoyment. Their wives and 
the women folks at home might do the chores, it was too stormy 
for them to venture out. 

A lone traveling man sat at a window apart, looking 
morosely out at the increasing storm. He had finished his round 
among the country stores, and was awaiting the arrival of the 
stage for its second trip to Landingville, three miles away, and 
from where it had not yet returned. Word had been passed 
around that the road was blocked, and it was uncertain if the 
up train on the Philadelphia and Reading Railway, then the 
only outlet in the region, had gone north to Pottsville, and the 
"drummer" desired to go south. 

Perturbed and anxious, he sat there, when the unmistak- 
able odor of sourcrout permeated the atmosphere. The traveler 
belonged to the effete civilization of the East and despised the 
toothsome Pennsylvania dish. Irritated beyond measure by his 



©It Sc{)uglktll 3Eales. 



disapiDointment, the, to him, hideous smell was the crowning 
insult to his misfortunes, when the following occurred : 

"Sourcrout! Ugh, Sourcrout! How anyone can eat sour- 
crout, I cawn't see, I'd just as lief eat dirt as eat sourcrout," 
said the disgusted traveling man. 

The venerable founder and landlord of the hotel was en- 
joying his pipe in silence in a remote corner of the room and 
awoke up from his half somnolent state to overhear this pettish 
remark of the storm-stayed salesman, when he replied in the 
rich Pennsylvania German, than which there is no better med- 
ium for a joke; the joke must always suffer by comparison 
through the translation: 

''Well, that is just as you were brought up. If you were 
brought up to eat sourcrout, you eat sourcrout. If you were 
brought up to eat dirt, you eat dirt." 

C'Sis usht wie mier uff-ga-broucht iss. Wanu mier uff-ga- 
broucht iss fier Saur Kraut zu esseh, est mier evah Saur Kraut. 
Wann mier uff-ga-broucht iss treck zu esseh, est mier treck.") 

The loungers arose and cast longing eyes at the bar, but 
the salesman Avas absorbed in his own reflections and adamant, 
and they dispersed. But not before every man had confided 
it to his neighbor that he believed that they were to have sour- 
crout for dinner at home and the smell just made him that hun- 



mti Scj^uglkill SEales. 89 



THE BLACK MOOLEY COW 



The Mooley Cow had been teased by the farm hands and 
petted in turn by the children of the Peterpin family imtil like 
some little people, who receive such unwise training by their 
elders, she had a very fitful and irritable disposition. 

Peter had but two pets. One a little white chicken, he 
called Annie, that perched on his shoulder while he fed the flock, 
for he had his chores to attend to like the rest ; and the black 
Mooley cow and the chicken he called his ovm. and he loved both. 

The Mooley cow knew him and would hang out her great 
red tongue and look at him sideways out of her big, blinking 
eyes for the salt he let her lick out of his hand and which he 
petitioned for from the kitchen. 

One day his father sent Peter to the barn for a half bushel 
measure which he placed over his head like a hat. The Mooley 
cow stood on a knoll outside the barn door and seeing this queer 
object coming toward her, did not recognize Peter and made up 
her mind that it was only another attempt to tease her on the 
part of the "knechts" and she bore down upon the boy and 
tossed him down the hill. 

It was at a steep point and being only a little boy with the 
upper part of his body encased in the bushel measure, the force 
sent him rolling down the hill, spinning round and round like 
a top. He screamed, of course, and his mother came to his 
rescue. The Mooley, however, stood quietly on the brow of the 
slope, lashing her tail and giving vent to an occasional loud 



90 ©ll" Scfiuglktll Cales. 



"Moo-moo" of victory over the defeat of her small adversary, 
and seemingly greatly enjoying his discomfiture. 



WASSER," THE FARM DOG 



Another of the animals on the farm was a real Pennsyl- 
vania German dog named "Wasser," a large vi^hite bull dog, 
that lived in a big kennel at the entrance to the farmyard, an 
excellent watch dog that feared neither man nor ghost, but his 
especial aversion was the black Mooley cow. To the city Peter- 
pins, who came to visit in the Summer, the antics of "Wasser" 
were a never failing source of delight. When Peter heard him 
his German "a, b, c," the dog would bark after each letter, but 
when the final "z" came he would grunt knowingly, and wag his 
tail and lie down, refusing to utter another sound. The town 
visitors would bring with them a hamper of bread and butter 
and other edibles for the satisfaction of making him scamper 
over the fields to the call of "Wasser ! Wasser ! Brod geveh, Brod 
geveh," which Avas his call from the German farm kitchen-maid, 
the only one he knew for his food. 

Wasser was fond of Peter and saw his undoing by the 
Mooley cow. He ran to avenge his little friend, but in his zeal 
ventured too near the Mooley, who threw him high in the air 
and over an adjoining fence. The dog was so chagrined at his 
defeat that he disappeared from the farm, and had long been 



©llj ScttiglktU a:alc0. 91 



given up as lost or dead, when one day be re-appeared, thin, 
sad-eyed and dejected, the worse for wear and altogether a wiser 
dog. In the meantime his adversary had been consigned by the 
home butcher to the meat barrel to stock the Winter's supply 
of salt beef. 



THE LONG SWAMPERS 



Long Swamp, in West Brunswick township, was an under- 
ground railway station, and was first used by a few runaway 
slaves, who succeeded in crossing ]\fason and Dixon's line in 
ante-bellum times, as a place of concealment and refuge. As 
the name indicates, the swamp provided, in its environments, 
a marshy fastness that few whites cared to penetrate. Its low 
strata of soil emanated, at certain seasons, gases of a phosphor- 
escent nature. The ignis fatuus (will-o'-the-wisp) was not 
uncommon. Lights were seen floating about at night in the 
inky blackness of its depths. The farmers in the vicinity knew 
little of science, and would have discredited any such an expla- 
nation of the Long Swamp Jack-o'-lantcrns, and harrowing 
stories were told about the head of a trunkless man, who had 
been murdered on the edge of the swamp, was buried in its 
depths and who could not rest, but floated or wandered about 
to prevail on some one to listen to his tale, remove his remains 
and bury them in consecrated ground. Several venturesome 
young men, the 'Squire's sons and their companions, had at- 



92 ©ItJ ^c{}usli^in ^Talrs. 



tempted to follow it to the scene of the burial. The white light 
flickered and moved always over the blackest marshes, which 
they followed in a batteaii, but they conjured the spirit in vain 
to speak or else forever after hold its peace. It always eluded 
them and disappeared before they reached it or else dissolved, 
and they passed through it. 

The runaway slaves felt secure in the fastnesses of the 
sAvamp, and knew they could elude their pursuers quite as well 
in its depths as anyw^here this side of Canada, Avhither they 
were bound, and they remained. They were soon joined by 
several Indian half-breed criminals, and some semi-respectable 
whites, and a mixed colony of a mongrel type was established. 
They built a scries of log cabins from the trees which they 
felled. They hunted and fished and in Summer lent their ser- 
vices to the farmers roundabout, who, often short of help, were 
glad to impress them into their employment. The}' could work 
when they Avanted to, and after the haying and harvest there 
were always corners left in the fields for the Long Swampers to 
glean to feed their few lean and sorry-looking cattle and horses 
with the aftermath. The 'Squire was especially liberal with 
them. His motto was ''Leben und los leben." 

There were some very industrious people, too, among the 
colony, in spite of their miscegenation. Dan Britton, a well- 
known colored man of Pottsville, came from the Swamp, and 
who ever knew Dan idle ? He traveled the county with horse 
and wagon as a huckster, and persisted in peddling almost to 
the day of his death. Dan was a dark man but had a half- 
brother, a white man, also from the Swamp, who became a pros- 
perous farmer in the southern part of the county. The Kinzel- 



©It) SdjuDlfeill STales. 93 



bachs, of Minersville, umbrella fakirs, peddlers and what-not, 
were of this brood. Lydia, wife of big Jack Martin, a white 
woman, who married a full blown negro, was raised in Long 
Swamp. She was an industrious and hard working woman all 
her life and honest, as Pottsvillo people who employed her, will 
testify. The first wife of Wm. Lew^is, a yellow man, for many 
years outside porter at a leading Pottsville hotel, was born in 
the Long Swamp, her family removing to Deep Creek where 
tliey worked among the farmers. She was a beautiful woman 
of the quadroon type. Tall and erect and of a large,' spare 
frame ; pale yellow in color, large, luminous black eyes, brilliant 
teeth, white and even ; she was greatly admired and was honest, 
industrious and a woman of refined instincts. Her heavy, wavy, 
purple-black hair reached to her knees when unbound. This 
feature led to the opinion that her father had been an Lidian, 
or that she had Indian blood in her veins. Two of her daughters 
were perfectly white. She died, as most of the colored people 
in the Xorth do, of tuberculosis. 

One of the noted characters of the Swamp was "Red 
Xance." In the early history of the County, from 1824: or 
1 hereabouts, to 1850, the Long Swampers held their sway until 
justice, under its coat of velvet, held them in its hand with a 
grijD of steel, and they disbanded and scattered. Some of these 
women made good servants an^ char-women for the housewives 
of Heading, Orwigsburg and Pottsville. Red Xance hired out 
among the farmers and lived near the Swamp. She had a 
daughter, Rebecca, whose worthless husband decamped, leaving 
her with a small daughter, Amanda. 

Rebecca was a housemaid at the John Bannan residence. 



94 ©It Scf)uglkin STales. 



ill Onvigsburg, where she remained for a number of years. 
When the Bannan family removed to "Cloud Home," their 
Pottsville residence, they brought with them as a servant, 
Amanda, then grown to young womanhood, and who had been 
cared for during the interim of her mother's service by her 
grandmother, "Red jSTance." 

Amanda looked askance at the white marble figure of 
Henry Clay on the monumental pile in front of Cloud Home, 
and one day asked her mistress what it was for. Mrs. Bannan 
gave as lucid an explanation as she was able to, to the questioner, 
of the life and character of the great protectionist and the 
principles inculcated through the doctrine and wound up with: 
"Don't you admire the monument, Amanda ?" when the girl 
with all the suj)erstition of her race answered : "No ! I don't 
like dead men standing iTp straight in front of people's houses. 
He ought to be in his gTave." 



THE SQUIRE AND KATRINA 



The 'Squire had quite a history. He was born in Germany 
and was the last to come over and join the family, who had all 
preceded him to the land of the free, and settled at Orwigsburg. 
The old father and mother, two daughters and three sons. One 
of the daughters married a German Evangelical minister, the 
other a farmer, and settled in Illinois. One of the sons was a 



©It) ^djuglfeill 9EalE0. 95 



well-known Orwigsburg doctor, the other a leading Pottsville 
practitioner. The family seemed to lean toward the practice 
of medicine and among the descendants of the next generation, 
four folloM-ed in the footsteps of their sires and were doctors. 
Of the present generation, at least two have flimg out their 
shingles with more yet to be heard from. 

Military conscription into the German army was the cause 
of their immigration to America. The sons had no inclination 
for military life and they fled the country. The 'Squire, how- 
ever, was 28 years old when he came. He liked his native 
coimtry and would not have migrated to America, but for the 
importunities of his family. 

He was educated in Hanover, Prussia, where he went to 
the common schools, where school opened at seven o'clock in 
the morning and continued until seven at night, the children 
taking their luncheons with them. He often related having 
seen Princess Victoria, niece of William IV^ and afterward 
Queen of Great Britain, going to and fro, from the same school 
building, Victoria was the daughter of Edward, Duke of Kent, 
the fourth son of George the Third, and was born in the Ken- 
sington palace. Her education was superintended by the Duck- 
es of Kent, The Guelphs were of the Hanoverian order of 
Knighthood, founded in 1815, by George IV, and the orphan 
princess was very strictly raised. She came in a plain carriage 
daily to the school house, attended by a servant in plain livery. 
After entering the building by a private entrance, she remained 
until her recitations were made and then retired. The 'Squire 
was wont to say that, the royal scholar was very ordinary look- 
ing and very modest and unpretentious in her manner. She 



96 ©lt> Scl^uglhtU STales. 



wore her thick dark hair in. the ""Gretcheu" plaits conmion to 
the school girls of her age, and there was nothing to distinguish 
her from any other German school girl, except her method of 
coming to the school. 

Mechanism and electricity in telegraphy were experi- 
mented upon from the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans, 
down. One Ersted, in 1819, discovered that a delicately sus- 
pended magnetic needle has a tendency to place itself at right 
angles to a conductor, through which a current of voltaic elec- 
tricity is passing. Ampere needles, as many as there were letters 
in the alphabet, came next in 1820. Then Gaus and Weber, at 
Gottingen perfected the invention. But it remained for Stein- 
hil to make the first perfect instrument, 'Tuly, 1837. It oper- 
ated for 12 miles and had three stations. 

The 'Squire was a young man, not much more than a boy, 
and he assisted Steinhil in his experiments, as a helper, and in 
the outcome of which he was most intensely interested. The 
'Squire had been educated by the Government for its clerical 
service, and had passed the rigorous examination. He had a 
foothold among the clerical force at the lower round of the lad- 
der, but promotion would follow through civil service rules and 
a pension would come at the end of a long and faithful ser\dce. 
His life was mapped out for him, and yet the 'Squire aban- 
doned it all, and settled in West Brunswick township, below 
Or^\'igsburg. 

Homer called beauty a glorious gift of nature, Ovid said 
it was a favor bestowed by the Gods, but Aristotle affirmed that 
beauty was better than all the letters of recommendation in the 
world ; and certain it was that Katrina's beauty was her recom- 



©lU Scljuglktil (lEales. 97 



mendation in the eyes of the 'Squire. He had had no thought of 
marrying, but here he was in a new world, all his old hopes and 
ambitions cast aside, and nothing to take their places; he was 
lonely and needed a tonic to brace him up. He found it. He 
fell in love with Katrina. 

He was twenty-eight and she seventeen, and it was no luke- 
warm attachment, but a genuine love affair. The Germans as 
a rule are a sentimental, warm-hearted, romantic race, and the 
attachment inspired was one that lasted a lifetime, and many 
are the stories told of it in the family. 

The 'Squire tilled his broad acres after a fashion, but he 
was no farmer, and never could take kindly to tilling the 
ground. He had a fulling mill, a clover mill, acted as Justice 
of the Peace for the township, school director, tax collector and 
was a general factotum for the public business of the vicinity. 
He was surveyor of the roads, laid out fields, and did much 
writing of deeds and abstracts, for those were the days when 
there were no printed legal forms and everything was written. 

In everything he undertook, Katrina was his encourage- 
ment. She attended to all the business about the homestead and 
managed the hands about the farm. After twenty-seven years 
of hard and unrequited labor, the family removed to Pottsville, 
where a fortunate investment in property gilded the golden 
years of their old age with the crowning success which the re- 
sults of their hard and incessant labor had refused to yield. 

What a pleasure it was to visit that old farm. Favored 
nephews and nieces (the former some of the leading professional 
and business men of Pottsville) recall with pleasure the mem- 
ory of their experience there. When the 'Squire met them and 



98 ©III Scfjuolkill En\z&. 



after the German fashion kissed them he told them thev were 
welcome, and thev were. Wliat fishing and boating on the 
mill-dam and creeks followed. The hajing, cherrying and ber- 
rving. The table in harvest, when helpers, children and all 
sat down, some tw^enty persons together, and the plenty and 
home-cooking served on that table. The singing school, the Snn- 
day School entertainment at the Red Chnrch, where the boys 
went npon one occasion. 

It was on the picnic style and served on tables in the 
elinreh. They called it a "fest," and bread, bntter, ham, ])ickles, 
cheese, sansage, cakes and lemonade were served as a sort of 
a reward of merit in attendance. The boys were hnngry and 
ate only as hungry boys can. They were helped and helped, 
and still they ate, when one of the church wardens took them by 
the shoulders, and said: 

"I guess you have eaten enough, boys. Get away noAv and 
leave something for some of the rest ;" and they obeyed. 

There was the red ear at the husking bee, the apple-butter 
stirrings, the candy pullings, skating and sledding during the 
winter and the game of "shinny" on skates, on the ice. Is it 
any wonder that the girls and boys of the olden days say, "there 
are no times like the old times." 

Katrina, too, was an original character, and the best of 
entertainers, l^o visitor was allowed to go away hungry. Her 
chicken and waffles, fried oysters and cooking were noted, and 
nothing delighted her more than when visitors showed their ap- 
preciation of them by eating heartily. (The maid of all work 
was known as "Long Ann." Her name was Ann Long.) When 
she reached her eightieth milestone, her grandaughters tendered 



©Iti Scf)uglkiII 9EalES. 99 



her a birthday reception. Always handsome, she looked regal 
at that age as she sat in a high-backed chair, clad in a heavy 
black satin gown and surrounded by palms and growing flowers, 
the gifts of her children and friends. She received her guests 
of the various branches of the family, a hundred or more in 
number (whilst her granddaughters poured tea into the small 
lacquered china cups, and served tiny wafers) with the same 
calm dignity that always characterized her actions. Approached 
l)v a nephew, a well-known physician, he said: 

"Well, Aunt K , how are you enjoying it all?" 

"Xot at all," she answered. "I am ashamed of such poor 
stuff. If they would only have left me, I would gladly have 
roasted a turkey and fried oysters, so that you would have had 
something good to eat." 

Once upon talking to a favorite niece, whilst they lived 
in the country, she descanted upon "how much better the 'Squire 
would have had it had he remained in Germany. He would not 
have had to work so hard." 

"But think of it, Aunt K " said the niece, "then 

you would never have seen him." 

Kothing non-plussed, she answered : "Well, it would not 
have mattered, if it would have been for his good. I would 
have been willing." 

All things, even the ideal married life must have an end. 
One day the 'Squire came home, complained of a cold and not 
feeling well. Xothing serious was thought of it. After several 
days about the house, he asked for a dish of oysters. He could 
not eat more than one or two. He beckoned to his faithful 

Lorc 



100 <©lti Sdiuulkfll STalcs. 



Avife to remove the dish. When she drew near he placed his 
arms about her neck, and whispered : 

"Have we not loved each other always and to the end ?" 
She said, '"Yes." 

Trying to disengage herself from his embrace, he fell back 
on the pillow, limp and inert. The Darby and Joan attachment 
was dissolved, the 'Squire was dead. 



He was only a little Pennsylvania German boy, a gi'eat 
favorite with the 'Squire's brood. The father and mother spoke 
English well enough to transact their business, when in towTi 
or visitors w^ere present, but on the farm the current vernacular 
only was used. The children must pick up the English lan- 
guage at school, and as best they could. 

''Ho! Boy. Can you tell me where Peter Albright lives, 
about here?" said the stranger. 

The boy shook his head slowly and answered : "Xo ! Aver 
der Pater Albrecht lifs over dere." 



The Episcopal Church at Schuylkill Haven was early estab- 
lished, and one of the outcomes was a Sunday School. The 
late Charles Hill, a carpenter in his early days, had a class in 
it for boys and Peter Peterpin walked the distance every Sun- 
day to attend. Mr. Hill afterward removed to Pottsville. On 
one occasion, John W. Roseberry, Esq., brought with him a 
lady, who was a visitor at Orwigsburg. She was very handsome 



©lU Scftuglkill ^Talfs. 101 



iiud even the Ixn-s were not obtuse, but aduiired her beauty and 
grace of manner. 

On leaving the Sunday School her low Jennie Lind shoe 
became untied, and Mr. Roseberry gallantly stooped to fasten 
tlie latchet. A woman who could not tie her own shoe was an 
anomaly to the country boys. One of whom remarked: "she 
might do to marry a lawyer, but such a lazy woman would not 
make a farmer's wife." 



On another occasion the Bishop visited Schuylkill Haven. 
There was seldom any English service held in Orwigsburg, and 
the forthcoming service in the little chapel at Schuylkill Haven 
was much talked about in the county seat. Francis B. Bannan, 
then only a small- boy, secured the required permission to go and 
see the Bishop. He walked the entire distance to and fro, and 
on his return was asked about it. when he blurted out somewhat 
disgustedly: 

"Why, Father, the Bishop is only a man.*' 



LAID THE GHOST 



Mr, Bamian tells the folloAving story, 

"There was considerable talk about ghosts in the early 
days. In the hollow near the Bed Cluirch, below Orwigsburg, 



102 ©IlJ SdjuuHull OTalrs. 



stood an old stone bouse known as the "Spook House." It was 
owned by Abraham Faust. A\"ho lived in a new frame house on 
the same farm, some distance awaj. President Roosevelt, bv 
the way, would have loved Faust, had he known him. He had 
twenty-three children and all living, with but the one wdfe. 

''There were mysterious noises about the place. A Ger- 
man refugee had committed suicide by hanging himself to a 
tree near the house, and it Avas said that his ghost haunted the 
spot. Lewis Shoener, Al. Witnian (brother of Mrs. Clara Alt- 
house), George Douglas and myself discussed the matter and 
determined to find out for ourselves if there was any truth 
in the story. 

''Securing lanterns, one dark night Ave walked to the house. 
The men who had bantered us said that there Avas a barrel in 
the cellar Avith some peacix-k feathers in it. If Ave came back, 
each boy Avitli one of the feathers in his hat they Avould be- 
lieve AA'e had been in the house. We secured the feathers and 
Avent upstairs Avhere Ave discovered that a loose shutter struck 
the lightning rod, and made that peculiar bang and AA'hir that 
sounded, clear to the road, like a rattling of chains. 

"'Mr. Faust had offered a rcAvard for the discovery of the 
ghost, or its cause, and each of the boys Avas the richer in a 
small sum of pocket money, Avhen he next came to toAATi, for 
having laid the ghost. He Avas satisfied Avith the clearing up 
of the mystery, and shortly after the place Avas occupied by the 
family, and he rented the new frame house." 



©Ill SdjuglkiU Ea\e&. 103 



DEATH OF GERMAN PEDDLER AVENGED 



In the vicinity of the Old Eed Church, there were several 
settlers that were off-color and ne'er-do-wells, who were looked 
upon with suspicion and distrust by the thriftv and hard-work- 
ing German farmers thereabouts. Some of them were sus- 
pected of witchcraft, and a witch was a person to be feared 
and conciliated. W^ierever such people lived, the superstitions 
of the settlers led them to treat them well, as it was not knowTi 
what spell they might work upon their neighbors, through the 
machinations of the Devil. If the bread would not rise, the 
butter would not come, infants withered away, crops were 
blighted, the cows would give no milk, they were bewitched, and 
many were the incantations and pow-wows indulged in to re- 
move the malevolent spell. Near Pinedale lived a witch doctor, 
who was suspected of working these spells of witchcraft, yet 
no one dared accuse him of it, 

A German peddler was murdered. His body was found 
under a lone pine tree on the edge of the open, his ])ack rifled, all 
his valuables and some of his clothing removed. The witeli doc- 
tor was suspected of the crime, yet no one dared openly accuse 
him of it. The peddler was buried under the tree where he 
met his untimely end. The grass withered and never gTew again, 
and the snow which fell to a great depth all around the spot, 
would melt at once, as it fell about the tree. The country 
people saw strange sights, and one young man, returning 
home late at night, reported that he had seen the peddler, whom 



104 ®lti 5cf)uglkill STalES. 



he had known well in life, running around the tree pursued by 
a man with an axe. So great was the dread of the spot, that 
no one ventured to pass the grave if they could avoid it, and 
there were rumors of moans and cries in that vicinity, heard 
from a distance. 

Mrs. Kate E, Bender, wife of the late George Bender, of 
Pottsville, tells the story most entertainingly, and furnishes the 
sequel to the old tale. 

"My father was Joseph Matz, my grandfather, Christian 
Boyer. They were farmers and well-to-do. We lived near the 
Red Church, below Orwigsburg. My ancestors are buried in the 
cemetery of Zion's or the Red Church. Our family was a large 
one. We sat down, twenty-two at the table, for the hired people, 
eat with the family in the country. 

''There was lots of work for a young girl in those days, and 
I had my share to do. Cooking and washing dishes for such 
a family was more than one pair of hands could accomplish. 
It took several. I could spin and weave and card wool. We 
grew the flax, and raised the sheep on our own farm. In my 
'housesthire,' some of which I still preserve, there were ar- 
ticles of home-made linen and woven quilts of wool, all of 
the products of our farm. To spin and card was looked upon 
as one of the accomplishments of a young woman then, like the 
outlining and fancy work of the girls of to-day. 

"My great-uncles were Gabriel and Daniel Matz. The 
former was a bachelor, and lived with the latter. Daniel was 
the father of 'big William' Matz who lives near Rock station, 
and is well-known in Pottsville. My great-uncles owned several 
fine farms, but lived then at the tannery, near Pinedale. 



©in 5^c|)iiulkill SDales. • 105 



''One day our uncle Gabriel made us a visit. He told us 
that the mystery of who killed the German peddler was at last 
solved. It happened this way. They were sitting in the big 
country store of an evening, swapping stories as was the coun- 
try custom. The talk was mainly on hunting, and the game 
thereabouts, my uncle having started it by buying some powder. 
The witch doctor was present, and never much of a talker, 
he said : 

"■ 'I heard of a man who was killed, once, with an axe. He 
ran around and around a tree and begged the man with the axe 
not to kill him. If you do, he said, you will hang for it. You will 
be found out. If in no other way, the chickens Avill dig the 
news out of the ground. (''Wan die hinkle es ausem treck 
gratza mus.")' 

"Everybody understood it, but no one dared accuse the witch 
doctor, for everyone feared him. Dwelling on the thought of 
his crime had doubtless finally unhinged his mind, or, it may 
be, he thought no one would recognize in the story, that he was 
the murderer. His moodiness increased, and shortly after this 
he hung himself to a tree. He was buried near the spot, but 
the peddler's remains were removed to a corner in the ceme- 
tery, that the settlers might have peace, and that he could rest. 
When they were dug up, a number of chickens were permitted 
to scratch in the freshly thrown-up earth, that the peddler's 
saying might be verified ; and the green grass gTew over the spot 
and covered his grave undisturbed and unmolested thereafter.'^ 



106 (Blti &ci)m\\xi\\ STalcs. 



DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER OUTDONE 



Sleepy Hollow was not the only locality that boasted of 
a headless horseman. Schuylkill County had one also, but 
there was no Washington Irving to immortalize him. Of the 
latter spectre, as the story goes, both the man was headless and 
the horse. Mrs, Bender, says : 

"^After the Little Schuylkill Railway to Tamaqua was 
built, there were many accidents at the crossing near where 
we lived, and several men were killed. The people were not ac- 
customed to the engines and did not understand the danger. One, 
a man on horseback, had his head cut off and his horse was 
frightfully mangled. After that it was said that a man without 
a head riding a headless horse might be seen on dark nights 
crossing the railway where the accident occurred. 

"There was a man, too, who worked in the Matz store, 
who hung himself in the loft of the storehouse. There was a 
great ado about where he should be buried. They at first re- 
fused to bury him in the Red Church Cemetery, but finally 
they allowed the grave to be dug in a comer of it, just inside 
the fence. There was talk of his haunting the storehouse, but 
my parents discouraged such foolish talk, and the story died 
out." 

Note: — The Matz families referred to are comiectious of 
Thomas Shollenberger, the late Sheriff Matz and Wm. Matz, 
Sr., who formerly kept the old White Horse tavern, Pottsville, 
and other families of that name and their descendants in the 
County. 



PART III 

HISTORY OF COAL AND CANAL 



PART III 



HISTORY OF COAL AND CANAL 



HISTORY OF COAL 



B 



ITUMIiSTOUS coal was discovered in England in 
eight hundred and fifty-three (853), but it was not 
mined or used until 1239, when Henry III granted 
mining privileges to the inhabitants of Kew Castle. 
It was soon introduced into London, but encountered opposi- 
tion from the masses of the people, who imagined it was dele- 
terious to health. They petitioned Parliament to prohibit its 
consumption in the city, assigning as a reason, that it would en- 
danger the health of the King. Parliament granted the peti- 
tion of the people, restricting its use. 

The use of anthracite or "stone coal/' as it was called in 
Pennsylvania, was communicated to the whites by the Indians. 
Two Indian chiefs, from the Wyoming Valley, visited England 
in 1710 and witnessed the use of bituminous coal for smithing 
and domestic purposes. The ignition of the hard or anthracite 
coal was known to the Indians. The rod men in 17GG had some 
sort of mines in Wyoming. 

109 



110 ©It) Scfiuglktll 3Eal£0. 



Wheu a coterie, six in number, of ]\Iohieans and iSTanti- 
cokes visited Philadelphia, in a talk with the Colonial Governor 
they told of white men who came in a canoe and took away with 
them from their mines the ore. The whites not only robbed 
them, but came again with their implements and dug a hole 
forty feet long and five or six feet deep and worked the mine 
and carried away the product in canoes. They took the coal for 
blacksmithing purposes. 

In 1770 two boats were sent from Wyoming on the Sus- 
quehanna river to Harris Ferry (Harrisburg). They carried 
twenty tons, which were conveyed in wagons to Carlisle, where 
it was experimented with and used in the U. S. Armory. 

In the first annual report of the Coal Mining Association 
of Schuylkill County, formed in 1833 and dissolved in 1845, 
reference is made to Scull's map of the Province of Pennsyl- 
vania, published in 1770. The extract reads as follows: 

''A coal mark north of the Tuscarora ^Mountain, or north- 
east of Reed's, not many miles from the Schuylkill Gap, within 
the then bounds of Berks County, may be found upon examin- 
ation, on Scull's map of the Province of Pennsylvania, pub- 
lished in 1770." 

This was the first coal discovered in Schuylkill County, 
and is supposed to have been found near the site of j^ew Phila- 
delphia or perhaps a little farther south. 

In 1791 Phillip Ginther, while hunting, accidentally dis- 
covered that anthracite coal would ignite. He made the dis- 
covery at what is now Mauch Chunk. It was a year prior to 
this, in 1790, that ISTicho Allen, a hunter, camped out for the 
night under a ledge of rocks in Schuylkill County. He had 



OVb ^cfjuplftill ErUq. Ill 



Iniilt a fire and laid down to slee}), awakinij,' to find the rocks 
all aflame. Allen lived at the Big S2)ring on the summit of 
Broad Mountain. His home was known as the Black Cabin. 
He afterward removed with his wife to Mt. Carbon. They had 
no children. He was an Englishman, and afterward migrated 
to the Eastern States, where he died. 

The buying of coal lands in Carbon and Luzerne Counties, 
immediately after the discovery of coal, gave Phillip Ginther 
precedence over A^icho Allen as the finder of the black diamonds, 
and history usually credits Ginther with that discovery. Some 
authorities, however, state that the discovery of the two hunters 
was a coincidence or simultaneous almost in date and Allen's 
name is mentioned with Ginthers. It was not more than five 
years after the discovery of coal in Schuylkill County, before it 
was used for smithing purposes. The first coal discovery in 
Schuylkill County Avas made in 1790 and the first coal un- 
earthed within the limits of Pottsville was in 1806. 

Col. Jacob Weiss, of Carbon County, carried samples of the 
black stones in his saddle bags to Philadelphia, after Ginther's 
discovery, and w'as credited with being "a fool for his folly." 
Old John Weiss, a connection of his, who lived near the site of 
the Odd Fellows' Cemetery, Pottsville, and drove the stage on 
the old turnpike road from Suid)ury to Reading, often told this 
story and w^axed wroth if anyone dared contradict him or assert 
that Allen had found coal in Schuylkill County prior to that 
discovered by Ginther. John Weiss afterward drove team for 
Jack Temple, of Pottsville. The Weiss family lived for a time 
at Orwigsburg. 

Jacob Weiss, with others, formed a company for the min- 



112 ©It ScbuglkiU (laks. 



iiig of coal, called the Lehigh Coal Mining Company, the first 
coal mining company in the United States. In 1803 they sent 
two ark-loads of thirty tons to Philadel])hia bnt found no buyers. 
The City authorities tried to burn the black stones under the 
boilers at the water-works but it put the fire out. It was finally 
used for gravel on the sidewalks. 

After the discovery, in 1790, by Xicho Allen of coal, a 
blacksmith, in Schuylkill County, named Whetstone, brought it 
into notice, in 1795, by using it in his smithery. His success in- 
duced several to dig for coal, but they found difficulty in burn- 
ing it. About 1800, "William Morris, who owned a large tract 
of land near the site of Port Carbon, took a quantity of coal 
by wagon to Philadelphia. He made every exertion to bring 
it into notice but failed. In 1806, in cutting the tail race for 
the Valley furnace, a seam of coal was laid bare. David Ber- 
lin, a blacksmith, made a trial of it. His success was complete 
and it was used continuously ever after, the grate and damper 
coming into use about the same period. 

It was about this time that Jesse Fell, Associate Judge of 
Luzerne County, discovered that it was necessary to create a 
draft in order to burn the black stones successfully, and he in- 
vented the grate. This first grate was used subsequently in the 
Fell House, corner of Washington and Xorth Streets, Wilkes- 
Barre. When the new hotel was built on the site of the old, 
the grate was retained and inserted in a fireplace where it may 
still be seen. 

John Abijah Smith, of Luzerne, saw this experiment of 
the grate and took two ark loads of coal to Columbia, but could 
not sell them. Xot discouraged, he took two more and with 



(Bin Scfjuglkill Cales. 113 



them a consignment of grates and a small trade resulted. The 
grates first used for domestic purposes were too small, the heat- 
ing properties of coal being over estimated ; the stove soon fol- 
lowed and the demand for coal increased. 

In 1812 Col. George Shoemaker procured a quantity of 
coal from a shaft sunk on a tract of his land on the ]^orwegian 
Creek, Schuylkill County, afterward knoA\Ti as the ISTorth Amer- 
ican mine. He loaded nine wagons with it, and took it to 
Philadelphia. He sold two of the wagons only by dint of the 
greatest perseverance. He gave the other seven away and those 
who had promised to try it, after a trial, denounced him as an 
impostor for attempting to impose black stones on them for coal. 
He not only lost the coal, but was out of pocket for the trans- 
portation. 

Jacob Cist, of Wilkes-Barre, leased the Mauch Chunk 
mine in 1813 and sent specimens of the coal to all the principal 
cities of Europe. A year later he sent an ark down the river, 
the first to Philadelphia, which it reached in six days. The 
boat broke a hole, which the boatmen stopped up with their 
clothes. The coal by this time cost fourteen dollars a ton and 
nobody wanted it. Journeymen were bribed by Cist to use it 
in blacksmith shops. Bear trap dams were created on the Le- 
high river to overcome the difficulty of navigation. The boats 
were conveyed to the Delaware and Philadelphia until the canal 
was constructed. Up to 1820 the whole amount of coal sent 
from Schuylkill and Luzerne Counties did not exceed 2000 
tons. In 1814 the amount from Schuylkill alone aggregated 
839,931 tons. In 1906 the Reading Company alone has an out- 
put of 35,000,000 tons. 

8 



114 ©Iti Sclbiiotiiin eraifs. 



Ill 1812 an aiiplicatioii was made to the Leo'islature for 
a law for the improvement of the Schuylkill river. The coal 
on its headwaters was held up as an inducement to the Legis- 
lature to make the grant, when the Senator from Schuylkill 
County arose and said : "There is no coal in Schuylkill County, 
only a lot of worthless black stones they call coal, that will not 
burn." 

The first machine for breaking coal was erected on Wolf 
Creek, near Minersville, by Mr. Bast. The first coal lands were 
located in the Schuylkill Valley. These tracts were operated by 
Bolton Curry, Barlow and Evans, Burd Patterson, Geissen- 
heimer and others. There were many valuable coal lands 
opened up. William Lawton, Blight, Wallace & Co., Porter, 
Eraerick and Edwin Swift owned some that were rich in coal. 
Joseph Lyons and Jacob Alter owned a large operation. Their 
success and the great flow of money that came with the invest- 
ment of large combined capital induced others to try their hand, 
but not always with the same haj)py return. Among these were 
John Rickert and George Bickert, father and uncle of the late 
Col. Thomas Rickert, of Pottsville, who opened up a small op- 
eration near Tuscarora, Andrew Schwalm, a prosperous boat 
builder and contractor, at Buffalo, Avas a heavy investor in the 
"Babbit Hole" and the three sunk their capital with no returns 
but their experience, which was dearly bought. The vein they 
were operating was faulty. The Hammers, too, of Orwigsburg, 
lost heavily. 

Doctor McFarland, scientist, opened the first vein, in 1814, 
at York Farm near Pottsville. In 1818 Jacob Beed opened coal 
land at Minersville. The Wetherill, Gumming and Spohn 



n 

o 

» 
►1 
n 
V 




©It Bcfjttglkill Calcs. 115 



tracts were considered valuable; thej were located at Flowery 
Field, Wadesville and Xorth America. Certain sections of 
Pottsville are undermined. The colliery of Pott & Bannan on 
Guinea Hill had a slope 400 feet deep. When the Garfield 
School house w^as built, an old entrance or manway to this mine 
was discovered on the ground. 

Samuel Lewis opened a mine at the foot of Greenwood 
Hill, which ran under Centre Street near the corner of Mahan- 
tongo Street. At one time the old Christopher Looser building, 
which was undermined, was supposed to be sinking into these 
old subterranean passages. These old mine passages ran north- 
west to the vicinity of Fifth and West JSTorwegian Streets. 

The Lawton-Ellet operation and the Black Mine (York 
Farm) also ran under the town from Mt. Laurel Cemetery, 
south, to Sharp mountain. The railway down Market Street 
from this operation was l)uilt in 1836. The Salem mine at Col. 
Young's landing also honeycombed portions of Greenwood Hill. 
A small coal operation stood at the corner of Centre Street oppo- 
site the Gas House. On the west side of the pavement the en- 
trance to the slope maj'' still be seen. It is boarded up and so 
small that it looks like the mouth to a spring. The Lehigh Yal- 
ley overhead lu-idge runs over the spot. 

After the building of the canal, which ran up to what is 
now corner of East IvTorwegian and Coal Streets, the coal from 
Guinea Hill was run down Second Street in small wooden box 
cars, and conveyed down to that point, across Centre Street. A 
blacksmith shop stood near the southeast corner of Second and 
]\rarket Streets. Andrew Robertson, Esq., remembers when a 
train of these cars jumped the track and ran into the black- 



116 (Bib Srf)uglktll CaUs. 



sujitb shop. The York Farm, operated by George H. Potts, as 
late as the later 'Fifties sent its coal down Market Street in 
cars drawn by nmles. The first of these cars were very small, 
and had wooden wheels and no brakes. They were manipulated 
by men who ran along the side carrying long poles to sprag them 
with. Later larger cars were nsed, and Thomas Dornan and 
Jack Temple, Ijoth large owners of horses and mules, were the 
contractors w^ho furnished the motive power (mules) for con- 
veying the coal through town to the railroad. The first coal 
from the Delaware was hauled over the tracks by cars drawn 
by mules to ]\rt. Carbon, or to the boat landing. 

Note: — Col. Shoemaker was the father of the late James 
Shoemaker and Mrs. Charles Clemens and grandfather of 
George S. Clemens and Frank G. Clemens, of Pottsville. The 
Shoemaker family lived in the Tumbling Run Valley, subse- 
quently removing to Port Carbon. The Mt. Carbon Hotel, built 
by Jacob Seitzinger and completed in 1826, a small, two-story 
stone building, afterward torn down and rebuilt by the Mortimer 
brothers, and known as the Mortimer house, on the corner 
of West Norwegian and Centre Streets, was kept by Col. Shoe- 
maker. He afterward ke])t the Pennsylvania Hall, which was 
erected bv him. 



©Ill Sdjuglktll 9ralcs. 117 



THE FORMATION OF COAL 



Tlie geologists woiild have us believe that coal is wholly 
derived from vegetation. That Avood was but changed from one 
condition to another but this theory must be sanctioned by the 
laws of chemistry. 

The geological epochs show that the temperature of our 
old planet, the earth, has greatly varied from one period to- 
another. That tlie primary origin of the elements had much 
to do with the forces that govern the world at the present time. 
That the solar atmosphere that surrounds the globe was govern- 
ed by the refrigeration of the heat, then as now confined to the- 
earth's centre. 

Chlorific sublimation followed the tendency around the 
earth's edges to refrigeration and the evaporation of the steam 
compelled the gases to form new combinations and crystalline 
arches resulted with the A^olcanic period. The solidified watery 
deposits made the ingredients of the soil of vegetation and with 
the beginning of organic life came the formation of beds of 
coal and the carboniferous period. 

Those deeply interested in the subject will find a scientific 
treatment of the coal period in Leon Lesquereux's "Geological 
Survey of Pennsylvania; Coal Flora." 

The fossil plants found by botanists in the form of coal 
flora are a source of endless delight to scientists. But scarcely 
one-fourth of these fossil species of vegetation are found in the 
coal measures. Most of these imprints are found upon slates. 
The resinous pitchy matter that goes toward the make up of 
pure coal is not found in these fossils. 



118 ©It Sdjuuli^iU {JTalfs. 

Sixtj-two species of fern and mosses form an interesting 
class of vegetable fossils. The tree formations, of which tlie. 
pitch pine is the most important are leading contribntions to the 
coal deposit. Dnring the coal period, marshes supported a rich 
vegetation that was bnried in the bogs, which hardened through 
the fermentation of the gases and thus through a union of tlie 
laws of chemistry and vegetation bituminous coal was formed. 

In anthracite coal the woodv structures of the trees turned 
into slate and rocks and through the pressure to which it was 
subjected, the turpentine, oil. bitumen and resinous tar and 
juices which it exuded formed the strata of pure coal 
underneath. 

To the veins of the bituminous coal basins this article will 
not refer. The fat bituminous coal of West Virginia, the coal 
asphalt of ISlew Brunswick, the cannel coal of Kanawha and 
Breckinridge, the tar coal of ISTorth Carolina, the semi-anthra- 
cite of Broad Top and Cumberland, all belong to the great coal 
coinbination of fuel and heat and steam power producers. But 
the pure anthracite coal of Schuylkill and portions of other 
adjacent coal-prod iicing counties overtops them all. 

In the anthracite coal basin there are from forty to fifty 
different veins of coal from one to fifty feet in. thickness. In 
the Wilkes-Barre region th.e mammoth vein lies within forty 
feet of the surface, in the Schuylkill basin it is much lower and 
was sought for 1200 feet beloAv ground in the famous Pottsville 
shaft sunk under the direction of Franklin B. Gowen and engi- 
neered by Col. Henry Pleasants. 

The anthracite coal regions include three distinct coal 
fields known as the Northern, the Middle and the Southern coal 



©It Sd^xiulkfll (JTales. 119 



field or basin. They form part of Carbon, Luzerne, Lehigh 
and Schuylkill Counties and a minor fraction of a small por- 
tion of adjacent territory. 

The coal scientists agree that the eastern end of the j^orth- 
ern field is being rapidly exhausted. The Middle field, too, will 
soon be worn out while the western part of the l^orthern field 
from Pittston to the western end and the Southern field from 
Tamaqua to Tremont will yet yield it richest returns and supply 
coming generations with its inexhaustible resources. 

To the scientist, a visit to the coal fields of Schuylkill 
County is full of interest. The fossil remains of vegetables and 
animals have often been found and specimens of a most perfect 
and interesting character. I^ear Mine Hill Gap the remains 
of a stone forest have been found. It is supposed that at the time 
of the deluge the mountain was forced apart by the flood and the 
fossils taken from that vicinity; and geological formations are 
like the leaves of an instructive treatise on the formation of the 
periods, and the extent to which the coal traffic has grown from 
these humble beginnings is a constant source of wonder and con- 
gratulation to even those who have been familiar with its inner 
workings from its inception. 



POINTS ON COAL 



In 1887 Charles Miesse, of Pottsville, wrote and compiled 
a work called "Points On Coal." It contains a full description 
of how coal was formed and e-ives the statistics of the anthracite 



120 ©Iti Sdjimlkill Caks. 



coal business up to that period. Some time since, a French 
savant wrote a treatise on the same subject, and he copied 
largely from Mr. Miesse's work. The late P. W. Sheaf er, Esq., 
who had a State reputation as a geologist and was heavily in- 
terested in coal operations in the county, said of the book that 
it would be the authority of the future on the coal in Schuylkill 
County. 

Mr. Miesse had met with reverses in business, and his evil 
genius seemed to pursue him in the publication of his book. 
Only a few copies were completed when his firm of publishers 
was burned out, and the manuscript, plates, type and every- 
thing were destroyed. 

"Points On Coal" contains a valuable and interesting 
paper on "The Anthracite Coal Fields of Pennsylvania," by P. 
W. Sheafer and read by him before the meeting of the American 
Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Saratoga. 
The author would delight in rejDroducing this paper, at this 
point, but lack of space will not permit. 



MICHAEL F. MAIZE 



Michael F. Maize w^as born near ISTew Berlin, Union 
County. He entered the ministry of the Evangelical Church 
when only sixteen years of age and was known through Penn- 
sylvania and Virginia as the "Boy Preacher." He was sta- 



©Ifa Scf)U2»^in Calf 3. 121 



tioned at Orwigsburg and Pottsville about 1 840, but was obliged 
to retire from the ministry on account of a bronchial affection. 

He entered the coal business soon after, with E. Hammer 
and Jonathan Schultz. In company with Aug. Miller and 
Fisher, of Philadelphia, under the firm name of Miller, Maize 
and Co., they operated collieries near ISTew Philadelphia. With 
the firm name of A. C. Miller & Co., he built the first houses 
and opened the first colliery at Shenandoah. Some years after- 
ward and with Levi Miller, of Pine Grove, he managed and built 
the Stanton colliery at Maizeville, which town was named for 
him. He also built and operated the West Shenandoah City Col- 
liery, under the firm name of Maize and Lewis, the latter being 
his son-in-law, W. H. Lewis, subsequently Superintendent of 
Wm. Penn. At this period came the big strike, the great de- 
pression in the coal business and the purchase by the Reading- 
Company of the majority of the best collieries in the region. 

Mr. Maize pioneered a new enterprise in Virginia and in 
company with G. W. Palmer and Ex-Governor Bigler, they 
opened a gypsum mine and mill near Saltville, and also a soft 
coal mine in Pulaski County, Va. There he contracted a severe 
cold from exposure, the result of the burning of his office and 
the house in which they were quartered and from which he 
barely escaped with his life. He returned to his home (a hand- 
some residence on Coal Street), where, after a continued illness 
for four years, he died at the age of seventy-three. He was one 
of the foremost and most highly respected citizens of Pottsville. 

Mr. Maize was an optimist by nature. His zeal for his 
parent church, the Evangelical, and for the cause of religion 
never abated during his long and active business career. His 



122 ®lti ^rf}uslfeill QTcilcs. 

interest in the church of that name was a direct inspiration to 
others and the result of his work and influence brought many 
of the foremost of the early business men of Pottsville into its 
fold. 

Mr. Maize was a good collector and his services were in 
frequent demand to assist struggling churches to gain a foot- 
hold. One story told of him was that he was called upon on one 
occasion to raise $5,000. 

The congregation was large but the people would not give. 
On ascending the pulpit, Mr. Maize at once requested that the 
doors be locked. 

''You want $5000 ; I intend to raise it," said Mr. Maize, 
and the usual methods were resorted to with success. The 
$5000 was raised. When the amount was announced a voice 
said, "But you have given nothing, Mr. Maize ?" 

'"'Well ! what ought I to give ?" ''Five hundred dollars," 
was the answer. 

"Very good," said Mr. Maize; "I will give $500, Init I 
charge $500 for my three hours work, time and traveling ex- 
penses. You do not expect a man to raise $5000 in cash for 
nothing, do you ?" 

There was a general laugh all around; the account was 
square. Such calls were frequent and he was a large giver to 
his home church and the general cause. 



©ID SdjiialUill (laics. 123 



QUEER FREAK OF CHILD 



Mr. !Maize was a man of fine social instincts, very compan- 
ionable and with a keen sense of all-aroimd hnmor. On one oc- 
casion he was preaching a very effective sermon and was ap- 
proaching the climax with all the fervor he was capable of, 
when a small child that had escaped her parents and was run- 
ning about the church caught her head between the upright 
sticks that supported the chancel railings beneath the pulpit. 

In vain did she try to extricate herself. Her tongue be- 
came swollen and hung out of her mouth, her features were 
strained, her face purple and the child was in danger of con- 
vulsions. 

Mr. Maize's nerves were already overwrought with his 
efforts with the sermon, and Avhen the parents came together, 
and between them, after some effort, released the child, he col- 
lapsed entirely and sat down and buried his face in his big red 
silk handkerchief, not to weep over the short-comings of his 
flock — but to laugh. He could not control his feelings and al- 
ways related the above as one of the funniest circumstances he 
had ever encountered while in the ministry. 



WM. H. LEWIS 



William H. Lewis, former Superintendent of Wni. Penn 
Colliery, a retired prominent coal operator, tells several good 



124 ®lti ^ci^uglkill Calcs. 



stories. The Win. Penn Colliery was until a recent period 
owned by a firm of individnals, E. and G. Brooke, of Birdsboro, 
and others. It was one of the last of a chain of collieries in that 
basin to go into the hands of the Beading Company. Under the 
skillful management of Mr. Lewis the AYm. Penn enjoyed a 
M'ide reputation as being one of the most productive and skil- 
fully managed collieries in the anthracite coal regions. The 
coal mined was a white-ash of standard quality. From 1000 
to 1200 tons were mined in a day and in its palmiest days 
1000 men were employed. Mr. Lewis was one of the best ac- 
countants and a skillful manager of men. One of the secrets of 
his ability to keep his colliery working during strikes and on 
church and other holidays was that he attempted to mix nation- 
alities and employ men of diversified faiths and different re- 
ligions. If some were idle for cause, the remainder worked. 

After some conversation on the coal business and the coal 
trade now as compared with former years, Mr. Lewis said : 

"One thing that has always surprised me is the ease with 
which you people write up the coal trade or indeed anything 
relating to the coal business; and then again how gullible the 
readers of such articles are and how readily they swallow whole 
all such information." 

The writer intimated that when coal trade news was 
wrongly given, in nine cases out of ten it was the fault of the 
person interviewed. Either the facts tendered were too meagre 
or else the party declined to be quoted or furnish any facts, and 
the seeker after news was bound and compelled to write some- 
thing, and the vaporings of his o^vn brain often furnished the 
substitute. Mr. Lewis said, ''I will give you two cases in point." 



(©in Scfjuglkill STalcs. 125 



"We had at Win. Penn a man of some character named 
John Zweizig. He was a German and came there from Kead- 
ing. He had l)een a Berks Gonnty school teacher, where he got 
into some difficulty with the school board through punishing a 
pupil. He could not work in the mines, but tried laboring and 
odd jobs and supported his family mainly through a night 
school. He was an intelligent man. Two of his sons have since 
become ministers in the Evangelical and Methodist Episcopal 
churches, the Revs. John and William Zweizig. 

"Zweizig came to my house one day and asked me to help 
him write a coal article. He would be paid for it and he needed 
the money. I pitied the man, and after some reluctance — I was 
generally too busy to be interrupted in those days — I consented 
to give him a few facts on the mining and cutting of coal, super- 
induced by a general knowledge of the methods employed in our 
own workings and a little knowledge on the geological formation 
of the coal strata. 

"I had forgotten all about the matter w^hen one day Mr. 
Zweizig came to me with a money draft in his hand and in great 
glee. 

"He had written the matter up in his great peaked Ger- 
man script hand and sent it to the German Evangelical "Bot- 
schafter" or the "Allgemeine Folks Freund," at Cleveland or 
Cincinnati, I have forgotten which, and signed it "Prof." 
Zweizig. The title was misleading; no doubt they thought he 
was a German scientist and he received $100 for the article, 

"The worst of it was, the Scientific Amei'ican had it trans- 
lated, and it made a good article, over the same signature, for 
its next issue." 



126 ©Iti ScI}UjjIkin (ZEalfS. 



''Another instaiieo was that of a Welsh miner who lived on 
0111- Patch. He was a singer and interested in the competitions 
at the Eisteddfods. He came to me one day and said that one 
of these festivals was to be held in Wales. There was a prize 
for $150 offered for the best treatise written on the formation 
and mining of coal, its production and market. He asked if I 
wonld assist him write one. 

''I told him T had no time, but he, being a careful, studious 
fellow, I gave him access to my library, and pointed out such 
geological and other works I thought might be of assistance to 
him, and being a practical miner, he could supplement the rest 
from his own knowledge. 

"Almost a year after he came to me with a letter. He had 
not gained the great prize, but his essay had received honorable 
mention, and he was the richer by a minor prize of ten dollars." 



MINERSVILLE AS IT WAS 



Minersville, next to Pottsville, lays claim to being the 
oldest coal town in Schuylkill Cotnity. In 1793 Thomas Reed, 
the first settler, erected a saw mill at the mouth of Wolf Creek 
and its union with the west branch of the Schuylkill River. A 
log house nearby furnished the home for his family. A tavern 
erected by 31r. Reed on the Sunbury turnpike, which ran up the 



mti Scljuslkill Ealt&. 127 



Mahantono'o valley to Gordon, was called the Half-way House, 
being midway between Heading and Sunbury. The tavern stood 
on the site of the "R. C. St. Vincent De Paul church. It was 
here that a relay of horses was made. 

The locality was thickly covered with giant trees, and. the 
business, before the mining of coal, was lumbering. A number 
of saw mills were at work preparing the rough timber which 
was floated in rafts down the west branch to Schuylkill Haven. 
The town was laid out in 1830, and incorporated in 1831 ; with 
the advent of the English, Welsh and Irish miner came the in- 
dividual coal operator. Money was plenty, and the social 
features and entertainments among the leading professional 
people and the resident coal barons were second to none in the 
county. 

Tradition tells of the evening "parties" (now termed re- 
ceptions and social functions) given by this class of residents 
in the olden times; Joseph Taylor (who built the old white 
mansion with the huge columns in front, still standing on Qual- 
ity Hill), his wife was a sister of Decatur ISTice; Seth Geer, 
Esq., whose wife was a sister of Hon. James H. Campbell ; Dr. 
U. B. Howell, and others, entertained lavishly. They were in 
turn attended by the Burd Patterson, James Patterson and Dr. 
James Carpenter families, and others from Pottsville. The 
Strattons, Pobins, Lawrences, Burns, William Wells, Esq., who 
married a Miss Cram, of Minersville; the Schollenbergers and 
Shellenbergers, Joseph C. Gartley, Jacob Fox, R. F. Potter, 
Col. George Brown, Capt. Roads, C. ]^. Brumm and many 
others came later and gave to ]\Iinersville a social prestige not 
exceeded by any town in the county. 



128 ®ID Sdjuulkill iiralcs. 



MINERSVILLE STORIES 
SOME FOLKS WILL NEVER DIE 



"When Sandy came over from Glasgow, he joined a party 
of the Forty-niners who went around the Horn in a vessel from 
Xew York to the Golden Eldorado of the Great West, to dig the 
precious metal, gold. He returned without any, like many 
another, and somehow drifted to ^linersville. He was a quaint 
old character, devil-may-care and addicted to his cups. 

He sat about the tap-room of the old stone tavern at the 
top of the hilly street, night after night and day-times, too, when 
it was stormy, or he did not feel like working, which was often, 
for, as he said himself, ''He was not '^ower fun' o' sach hard 
wurk." He had a horse and cart, pick and shovel, and was em- 
ployed on the Borough with the street hands. 

How he struck the fancy of old Charlotte, who owned the 
tavern and other property, bequeathed her by her father, no one 
knew. They were never seen or heard talking to each other. 
Sandy was the broadest of Scotchmen and Charlotte was Ger- 
man and could not talk a word of English and she was at least 
twenty years Sandy's senior. 

After they were married, Charlotte saw that tavern-keep- 
ing w^as not Sandy's forte. He was the best customer they had 
at the bar, insisted on giving away, free, half of their liquid 
stock and had frequent quarrels with the farmers and others who 
were the best patrons of the old stone hostelry. 



mti Sdjuglkill STalES. 129 



At the close of the year she leased the hotel and the pair 
retired to a small house at the rear of the tavern, and here the 
singular couple lived attended bv an old maid, who did the 
housework and waited upon Charlotte, who was fast becoming 
very infirm and decrepit with rheumatism and a swelling of 
her limbs. They had a large, well-kept garden, wdiere she, as- 
sisted by the maid, would totter about and work, as long as she 
was able, among the vegetables and flowers, which were her de- 
light. Sandy, disliking the confined quarters of the little house, 
had a bed removed to a room in the little, old, tumble-down barn, 
where he slept near his horse, which was apparently the only 
living thing he cared for. 

Matters went on this way for several years. One morning, 
the "auld wife," as Sandy called her, was in her garden potter- 
ing about as usual. Her neat, black dress had been carefully 
pinned up by the maid to prevent soiling from the early dew, 
when her red flannel petticoat attracted a young heifer they were 
raising on the place, and w^hich had managed to break through 
the old fence from the barnyard, and the poor old lady was 
thrown to the ground and badly gored before the maid could 
come to her rescue and drive away the infuriated beast. 

Doctor Oscar Robins, a leading physician of the village, 
was called in, and he gave it as his opinion, that, owing to her 
advanced age and other infirmities, Charlotte could not survive. 

Sandy housed the horse and cart in the barn, and quit work 
at once. He Avent out and bought a full suit of black clothes, 
including a high hat and flaming red neck-tie, all in preparation 
for the funeral. 

The ''auld wife," however, contrary to the expectations of 

9 



130 ©Iti .^djuolfeill Calcs. 



the Doctor, held her own during the night. "'Her pulse was 
feeble, her fever high, but she was living," said the Doctor to 
Sandy, the next morning, at the front door, where he stood 
dressed in his new clothes and anxiously awaiting him. This 
was repeated on each occasion of the Doctor's visits, until the 
third day, when he broke, the news as gently as he could, that 
"Charlotte was better, and would probably be as well as ever 
in a short time." 

"Be the jumpin' Moses," said old Sandy, '"sae folks 'ill 
ne'er dee." 

When Sandy was turned seventy, Charlotte finally suc- 
cumbed, at the age of ninety-three, and the old maid died a few 
weeks after her mistress, to whom she was greatly attached. 
Sandy did not live long to enjoy his liberty. Just what had 
been predicted by the neighbors for almost a quarter of a cen- 
tury occurred. A drunken man, a lighted coal oil lamp over- 
turned, and a barn full of new-mown hay» fodder and straw. 

The barn burned to the ground, as well as the handsome 
cottage of the village editor of the Weekly "Schuylkill Repub- 
lican," on an adjoining corner. Sandy and the horse were both 
rescued by the "Mountaineer" boys, who worked nobly to save 
the surrounding property, but he had inhaled the smoke and 
died from the effects of it soon after. 



©Ilj Scfjuglkill Caks. 131 



THE JOLLY FOUR 



They were four of the j oiliest and most jovial men in the 
town of Minersville — the rotund, rosy-cheeked, happy-looking 
lawyer ; the retired coal operator and Captain in one of the early 
wars ; the successful storekeeper, and the Philadelphia and Read- 
ing Company land agent ; and all were fond of a friendly game 
of poker. "Jimmy's" was the rendezvous, and as many nights 
in the week as they could shape it, the time. 

Their wives were opposed to this loss of their company and 
perhaps their money, and used every means within their power 
to keep their husbands at home, even to organizing a weekly 
social game and card party in their o^vn and each other's par- 
lors, as an antidote to prevent the gathering at "Jimmy's." 
But it was of no avail. 

Poker playing among the "Jolly Pour" was broken up for 
a while. But one night it was rumored about town that the Cap- 
tain had been seen going in to "Jimmy's" as usual, but attired 
only in his red flannel underwear, feet clad in slippers and this 
outlandish rig overtopped with an overcoat and his usual head- 
gear, a silk hat. His wife had hidden his trousers to prevent 
his going out. This announcement proved too much for the 
gang, and they each broke harness and fled likewise for the rear 
room behind the bar. 

A jolly evening ensued and time fairly flew, until at last 
"Jimmy" himself interposed ; "they must retire, he did not keep 
an all-night house." The land agent was almost speechless 



132 ©It) SdjugUuU (Talcs. 



with good-clieer, and past arguing the matter, and the trio with 
the assistance of the hostler placed him in his conveyance and 
hung the reins over the dashboard ; the old mare knew the way 
home. The others were dismayed to find it was almost three 
o'clock, and they discussed what they would offer" as an excuse 
to their irate wives. 

The wily lawyer had provided himself with a box of con- 
fectionery in advance, and said: 

"He would just give her that and say, they had had initia- 
tion at the lodge and he was rather late." 

The storekeeper followed the lead, and thought he would 
say: 

"He had been watching at the bedside of a sick lodge- 
brother." But the Captain was obstinate. He drew himself up 
in his red unmentionables, donned his overcoat and hat, assumed 
a military air and saluting with his walking stick as if it was 
a sword, and the two his superior officers, said : 

"Gentlemen! I have no reason to give. I will just 
simply say, 'Good morning, Mrs. Coats!' and she will say the 
rest." 



NOT TO BE OUTDONE 



"Daddy" Schu had been imfortunate in his matrimonial 
adventures. The first two wives, excellent women, both, that 
they were, had succumbed to the inevitable and died after a 
happy year, each, of married life. They were sisters and had 



©It) SdjuuHull OTaks. 133 



lived together prior to the marriage of Melinda, the eldest, and 
they continued this domestic relationship. It was not unnat- 
ural, the gossips said, that "Daddy" should marry Lucy after 
the year of mourning had expired. But that Lucy, too, should 
die before the next year ended was more than either they or 
^'Daddy" had reckoned upon. 

"Daddy" belonged to that class of men that find it hard 
to endure life without domestic companionship, and twice there- 
after he sought consolation with partners, whom, it must be con- 
fessed, did not size up at all in comparison with the two sisters ; 
and that after the death of each, even he, drew a breath of relief 
that all was over and he was again a free man. 

The "Widow" Drury kept tavern on the mountain side 
above the town of M . Hearing of "Daddy's" bereave- 
ment, she donned her brightest green shawl, best grey alpaca 
gown and bonnet trimmed with flaming red ribbons, and sallied 
forth to attend the funeral. ]^o one wept more copiously than 
she, when Parson Frame recited the virtues of the deceased 
wife, who was a friend of hers, and it was hinted that susceptible 
^^Daddy" succumbed then and there. 

The widow, however, raked up an imaginary cow case with 
a neighbor, and began the siege to the citadel of "Daddy's" 
heart by visiting his office the next day after the funeral, and 
every day or two thereafter, for he was a Justice of the Peace, 
to consult him about the cow and the advisability of bringing a 
suit. 

She was tired of tavern keeping, and allowed that a fine 
brick house, like "Daddy's," on the main street, opposite and 
aside of the two hotels and the postoffice, was not to be over- 



134 ©It) Scf)U2lklll (lEaks. 



looked. It was just after the first visit, that she confided to a 
crony, that she "would never let that fine new rag carpet, with 
the double red and green stripes lengthwise, remain in his office, 
when she was mistress there." 

Poor "Daddy ;" it was only five weeks after he buried his 
fourth wife, when he led the widow Drury to the altar, and was 
again a benedict. 

Lawyer Dreer passing his office one morning, en route for 
the People's Railway and the Court House in Pottsville, on 
legal business, saw "Daddy" in the doorway and said jokingly, 
for Dreer was something of a wag: 

"How is this, 'Daddy,' marrying so soon again? Didn't 
you tell me the day Magdalena died, that you were resigned, 
and that the Lord had taken her away; and if I remember 
rightly, you even said, 'Blessed be the name of the Lord.' " 
"Yes, yes," said "Daddy," "so I did! so I did! But as long 
as the Lord takes, I'll take too." 

Poor old "Daddy!" The widow Drury, his fifth, was a 
virago, as everybody knew, and "the Lord," they said, "cer- 
tainly never wanted her," at least not just then, for she lived to 
a doubly green old age. "Daddy" died after a few months of 
wedded experience, and was buried in the old cemetery on the 
hillside^ and many were the expressions of regret and the tears 
shed over his departure; for he was an innocent old soul, an 
Israelite indeed, in whom there was no guile, and genuinely 
liked by everybody. 



©lU Sj^uglktll STaks. 135 



THE SCHUYLKILL CANAL 



The Schuylkill ^Navigation Company Avas incorporated 
by an Act of Assembly approved by Governor Simon Snyder, 
March 8, 1815. Work was begun and during the spring of 
1817 the canal was made navigable to Schuylkill Haven. The 
freshet of 1818 carried away the dam.s and locks and the work 
of reconstruction followed, but the work was not completed 
until 1821, and then only to Reading. The waterway was 108 
miles in length. It was not until 1827 that the canal was really 
completed, although boats were run to Philadelphia in 1824. 
They were small affairs, rafts and scows, and were towed the 
entire distance by men who walked at the end of a long line. 
Sticks were fastened to the ends of the lines and these were 
placed against the breasts or shoulders of the men who thus 
propelled them. After the completion of the towpath, mules 
were used as a means of propulsion. 

There were many drawbacks to a successful navigation 
during these years. The waterway was shallow at points 
iiTid. filled up with sand and debris. The sides of the canal fell 
in and many difficulties were encountered with the locks and 
dams, all of which Avere repaired and reconstructed. It was 
not until 1846, hoAvever, that the canal was enlarged by increas- 
ing its width to enable boats of a larger tonnage to pass through ; 
and steam power was talked of for propulsion. 

In 1843, the amount of coal sent through the Schuylkill, 
Delaware and Raritan canals, from this region for l^ew York 



136 ©l^ ^djuulkill OTalcs. 



and Philadelphia, reached 119,972 tons. This was the ban- 
ner year for the canal. 

The rate of toll on the canal was 36 cents per ton, with 
5 per cent, allowed for waste. The whole charge by ton of 
coal by railroad, at the same time, was $1.10 to $1.25. 

Transportation was slow bnt it was very cheap. So cheap 
that the railroads could not enter into competition with it and 
the railroads killed the canals. They bought np the canals 
and hundreds of miles of waterway that were constructed at a 
heavy cost were destroyed. In 1870 the canal was leased for 
a term of ninety-nine years to the Philadelphia and Reading 
Railway Company. In 1878 that portion of the canal between 
Mt. Carbon and Schuylkill Haven was abandoned, and in 1886 
it was further abandoned to Port Clinton. The Reading Rail- 
way forced the Schuylkill Canal out of business. 

The rehabilitation of the mutilated and dead canals of 
Pennsylvania would be a great enterprise and yield a most 
profitable return to the people. But there is no possible hope 
for competitive waterways to the rival railways in the busi- 
ness situation of to-day. The centralization of capital, the 
immense railway interests at stake, the power of the railway 
companies, all prevent the practical carrying out of any senti- 
ment favoring the re-opening of the dead canals of Pennsyl- 
vania ; the Schuylkill Canal among the number. 



©Ill ^cf)uslkill QTalrs. 137 



THE FIRST BOAT-BUILDERS 



William Wildernmth built the first boat launched on the 
Schuylkill Canal. The boat was a small one with a capacity 
of 80 tons. It was built in 1830 on a lot adjacent to the Dr. 
Douglas home, on the lower street of Orwigsburg. Wilder- 
muth was born and raised near Landingville and learned car- 
pentering in West Brunswick township. He was encouraged 
to undertake the enterprise by Dr. Benjamin Becker, then a 
leading physician of the county. 

When the boat, which was the only one ever built in that 
town, was completed it was placed on a Conestoga wagon and 
hauled to the Seven Stars, above Schuylkill Haven, where it 
was launched on the canal. The completion of the enterprise 
was made the source of a general jollification. The people of 
Orwigsburg turned out to see the boat hoisted on the wagon. 
The mules that drew the wagon had red, white and blue paper 
rosettes on their heads, and the wagon and harness were 
trimmed with the tri-colors and gaily decorated. Horns were 
tooted as the boat passed through the town, the people cheered 
and many accompanied the procession to the Seven Stars, where 
a large assemblage of people aAvaited the event and a general 
good time ensued. 

In the same year, 1830, Mr. Wildermuth opened the first 
l)oatyard at Landingville, with a saw-mill attached. 

In 1832, Andrew Schwalm, who came to Orwigsburg from 
TuljDehocken, Berks County, opened another boatyard adjoin- 



138 ©Iti Sc|)iiulkill (Hales. 



ing Mr. Wildermiitli's. Mr. Schwalm had been engaged in boat 
building at Buffalo, 1^, Y., where he was successful. 

About this time, Wm. Wildermuth took into partnership 
with him, his son-in-law, Samuel Leffler, who continued in the 
business until 1876, when he died. He was succeeded by his 
sons, William and Samuel Leffler. 

Wm. Wildermuth retired and removed, with his daughter, 
to Scranton, where he died in 1S68, at the ripe old age of 84- 
years. He was interred at Orwigsburg. He was the grand- 
father of C. W. Wildermuth, of Pottsville, the Pauls, of Port 
Carbon, and Lefflers, of Landing\^ille, and has other descendants 
in this county and various parts of the country. 

Andrew Schwalm continued in the business from 1832 
until 1845, acquiring what was considered a small fortime for 
tliose days. He retired, but later engaged in partnership in 
another yard for a short time with Samuel Leffler. The latter 
subsequently entered into a copartnership with his brother, 
George Leffler, which arrangement only lasted about a year. 

Hundreds of boats Avere turned out by these pioneer boat- 
builders, Wildermuth, Schwalm and the Lefflers, between 1830 
and 1846; when the canal was widened and deepened, the boats 
were enlarged to double their capacity and with this enlarge- 
ment in construction, the veteran builders retired from active 
business life. Andrew Schwalm died in 1863. He was the 
grandfather of the children of the Frederick Haeseler, John 
and Joseph Schwalm, Wm. E. r>oyer and W. M. Zerbey fami- 
lies, of Pottsville, Philadelphia and Mahanoy City, and has 
numerous other descendants in different parts of the country. 

The writer remembers him as a large-framed man, sparse 



(©lb SdjuoHull iiralcs. 139 



in figure, tall, about six feet in height. His complexion dark, 
sallow, smooth face and with hair black as a raven's wing up 
to the time of his death. Andrew Schwalm was a man that 
inspired the confidence and enjoyed the resj)ect of all who 
knew him. He was grave and dignified, almost to austerity, 
and belonged to that class of the early settlers who were im- 
pressed with the seriousness of life and had little time or taste 
for its frivolities. It was Bill 'Nje who said of his ISTew 
England progenitors that "they had considered it not only a 
misdemeanor to laugh but almost a crime." 

Clad in russet corduroy velvet trousers, double-breasted 
blue cloth waistcoat with golden buttons, a swallow-tailed blue 
broadcloth coat to match, high round linen collar and huge 
black satin stock, his thick black hair cut round, like the pre- 
vailing style of the Oliver Cromwell period, the black silk hat 
■or high beaver, the latter of which he wore on every occasion, 
Andrew Schwalm was a perfect type of the old-time Puritan 
Pennsylvania gentleman. He, with his wife, Hannah Miller, 
had twelve children, eight of whom survived to man and 
womanhood's estate. Two sons and six daughters. 

George Eickert, father of the late Col. Thomas Pickert, 
with Menton Ludwig, opened a boatyard, in 1853, near the 
Peading station, at Landingville. They closed it after an ex- 
perience of two years. Solomon Fidler succeeded them and re- 
mained in business until 1884. Wm. Deibert and son, Henry, 
were among the successful boat-builders of a later period. 

George Adams, of Adamsdale, worked at Landingville, but 
started for himself in 1858 at Adamsdale. Mr. Adams car- 
ried on the business on a large scale, sometimes employing as 



140 ©Iti ScfiuolkiU C'nlcs. 



high as forty men, and had six boats on the stocks at one time. 
The men worked, during these busy times, in day and night 
shifts. 

The boats built at Landingville were not alone for the 
Schuylkill Canal. They were constructed for Xew York, Balti- 
more and I^ew Haven. Scows were built for the D. and H. 
Canal. The boats that first had a carrying capacity of SO tons, 
were afterward constructed with a freight limit of 200 tons. 

During the big freshet of 1850, the boatyards were all 
flooded and the material and buildings were carried away. 
The boat "Jennie Lind," was on the stocks ready to caulk. 
The boat was carried to the towpath bridge. Here the boat 
collided with the bridge, tore out part of it and then swung 
around, where it remained. The boat was drawn away with 
a windlass and brought to drydock at Schuylkill Haven, where 
it was finished. Stocks were carried aAvay and boats taken from 
the stocks in the freshet. 

Other boatyards were conducted successfully at Schuylkill 
Haven, the Saylors ; and at Pottsville, John Crosland and 
Samuel Grey, at Mt. Carbon, and Joseph Shelly on the site of 
the pioneer furnaces. 

The Schuylkill Canal was first projected for the trans- 
portation of lumber and farm products down the river, but all 
this was changed with the fruitful mining of coal. 

Abraham Pott, of Port Carbon, built the first railroad 
in the United States. It was successfully operated in 1826, 
1827, and was about a half mile in length and extended from 
the junction of ]\Iill Creek to a point where it connected with 
the canal. This pioneer railwa}^ had wooden rails laid upon more 



©It) Sdjuulkill QTaks. 141 



regular log rails, and a train of 13 loaded cars, dra^vn by one 
horse, ran over it, drawing a load to each wagon of about 1^ 
tons of coal. 

It is claimed that the first horse railway in the country 
was one built in Massachusetts. It was three miles in length 
and led from the granite quarries, at Quincy, to ]Sreponsit 
Run. It was not completed until 1827, giving precedence to 
that built in Schuylkill County. The railway, from Summit 
Hill to the Lehigh River, at Mauch Chunk, Avas nine miles in 
length, and was also completed after the Pott railway, in 1827. 

To Abram Pott is also given the credit for first having 
used coal cars that opened at the bottom for unloading, thus 
doing away with the dumping of the car. He was the first 
settler, too, to use anthracite coal to generate steam for the 
steam power engine. Up to 1829, water power alone had been 
used at the saw-mills. 



SCHUYLKILL HAVEN 



Martin Dreibelbeis, who came here in 1775, is generally 
accredited with being the first settler of Schuylkill Haven. 
That there were others, notably among them being the Finschers, 
who were massacred by the Indians, there is no doubt. Martin 
Dreibelbeis was born near Moselem, Berks County, in 1751. 
He settled on the eastern bank of the Schuylkill Rivei:, where 
he established a saw mill and grist mill. The latter was built 



142 r, ®IlJ Sr!)iiulkill Calcs. 



of stone, and jjart of it was used as a dwelling house by the 
family. It was strongly built, and during the early incursions 
of the red men the mill afforded a place of refuge for the 
settlers against the murderous and savage Indians. 

Martin Dreibelbeis lived on lower Main Street, on the 
banks of the river, until 1799, when he built a house in what 
is known as Spring Garden. lie died shortly after, at the age 
of 48, his son Jacob, by the terms of his will, falling heir to his 
land, which embraced most of Schuylkill Haven proper, and his 
son Daniel that part north, including the land on which stood 
the newly-built homestead. The first marriage was that of 
Mary M. Dreibelbeis and John Reed in 1795, by the Rev. 
Henry Decker, of Reading. Of this couple more will be found 
in the early history of Pottsville. 

Jacob Dreibelbeis laid out the town in lots in ISll, which 
were sold at a nominal price. It was not, however, incorporated 
until 18-11. Martin Dreibelbeis donated a piece of ground for 
religious, educational and burial purposes. This log school- 
house was built ujion the ground now included in part in the 
cemetery of the Xew Jerusalem, or White Church, on the turn- 
pike road. 

Jacob Dreibelbeis retained the mills of his father after the 
latter had retired to the hotel, afterward known as the "Mackey 
House," in Spring Garden. Daniel Dreibelbeis built a saw mill 
and grist mill on the rear of the property now occupied by the 
First ISTational Bank. These mills were removed by the Schuyl- 
kill ISTavigation Company about 1828. The mills were propelled 
solely by water power. 

From the year 1817, when the work of construction began 



©ItJ ScfjUDHuU (lalcs. 143 



on the Schuylkill Canal, the growth of Schuylkill Haven Avas 
gradual and substantial. From 1827 to 1846, from the time 
the tow-jDath was completed, up to when the canal was enlarged, 
the ''Haven" was anything but one of "Rest." After 1886, 
when that portion of the canal between Schuylkill Haven and 
Port Clinton was abandoned, and boating on the raging canal 
was relegated to inoccuous desuetude, the enterprising residents 
of that Borough became painfully aware that something must 
be done if they would maintain their place in the ranks of towns 
of enterprise in the county and State. They not only met, they 
resolved and they acted on this resolution, and the result is that 
the town is enjoying a period of industrial activity, from the 
number of small manufacturing interests established and main- 
tained, second to none in the county. 

The large Reading Company coal schutes and railway in- 
terests contribute their part, also, toward employing a large 
number of men, all of which contributes toward the prosperity 
enjoyed by the people of the Haven. 

Note : — Benjamin Pott, son of John and Maria Lesher 
Pott, was married to Christiana, daughter of Martin Dreibelbeis 
and his wife, Catharine Markel. Their children were : Hannah, 
Mrs. C. P. Whitney ; Sarah, Mrs. Lewis Vastine ; John L. ; 
Christina, Mrs. D. K. Snyder ; Amelia, Mrs. George Schall, and 
Miss Emma Pott. 



144 ®\ti SdjuulktII EakQ. 



PLAYED BETTER THAN OLE BULL 



Henry Hesser was not only a good fiddler, bnt really an 
artist on the violin. He was in great demand at all of the 
social occasions in the village of Schuylkill Haven, and the 
country people for miles around considered him a musical 
prodigy of great ability and pers])icacity ; and more than that, 
he was noted as a master of the violin by everyone. He "under- 
stood the notes," they said, but had in addition a "Blind Tom" 
facilit}^ for taking a theme and interweaving and surrounding 
it with fancies and interpolations that were very pleasing. He 
brought out, too, on that king of instruments, with great skill 
and ease, his own dreams and ambitions and there is no doubt 
but that Mr. Hesser was more than ordinarily musically gifted. 

Ole Bull, during his first concert tour, visited Philadel- 
phia and, in the course of time, an early day traveling salesman 
came to the Haven, and to while away the evening, sat in the 
barroom of the Washington Hotel, and told stories of the 
wonders of the metropolis ; and among them, related how Ole 
Bull had captured musical Philadelphia with his wonderful 
prowess on the violin. 

The room was full, the interest great, and all listened in 
silence, but with a manifest air of disapproval. This disappro- 
bation grew stronger and stronger as the story proceeded, until 
the suppression of opinion became almost unbearable, and the 
crowd arose as one man. The rigid tension was relieved by one, 
Ike Bensinger by name, their spokesman, who piped up in his 
thin, falsetto voice : 



©lb Scl^uuH^iU ^Ealcs. 145 



'"Did you ever ? Did you ever hear "Hen" Hesser play ?" 
And the drinks, of course, were on the traveline; man. 



INDIAN STORIES 



One of the Indian legends related by an aged resident of 
the Panther Valley, was that of an Indian ghost, who wandered 
around the crags and bluffs through which the Swatara creek 
runs, near Swatara. His father told him that the Indians who 
lived there had been out on a marauding trip, and returned with 
a large amount of loot and some gold. One of the braves con- 
cealed the gold under a rock near the creek. He was kill.ed by 
his companions for the treachery, and ever after his wraith 
was seen wandering in and out among the rocks to find his ill- 
gotten treasure. The narrator remembered frequently tracing 
his steps in and out on the Indian causeway, to find that treas- 
ure. His genii was the red man's ghost, whom he hoped to en- 
counter some time unexpectedly, and wrest from him his secret 
of wealth, that would prove as fal)ulous as that of the hidden 
recesses in !Monte Christo's Halls, but he never found him nor 
the treasure. 

Gold was said to have been found upon the '"Gobbleberg," 
and the Indian superstition claimed that when it thundered and 
lightened the rocks were sometimes cleft in twain and the hid- 
den recesses were discovered to be gorged with nuggets of gold. 
10 



146 ©Iti ^cliiicHull QTalcs. 



AYboever could claim tliem before they closed was in favor -with 
the spirits of the air, and the genii of the mountain. Many 
hunted for this gold, but it was like hunting for the pot of that 
precious metal that hangs at the horns of the prismatic rainbow. 

Many of the flights, by the thoroughly frightened settlers, 
to the block houses and Indian forts were superinduced by false 
alarms. "The Indians are coming" ("Die India Kummah"), 
was sufficient to startle the sparse communities' into almost im- 
mediate flight. On one occasion an old woman, whose son could 
carry her no farther, was left in the woods (at her own request^) 
to die. She could not live much longer anyway, she said, while 
the rest of the family hastened on to a place of safety. When 
the Indians came up to her place of refuge they proved to be a 
squad of Captain O'Leary's Colonial Guards, Avho were pro- 
tecting the woodsmen out to sight such timber as was needed to 
cut for the use of the navy yard at Philadelphia, and they 
carried the old lady to a place of safety between them. 

Another legend is told of an Indian maiden, Wanomanie, 
who sprang from the highest point of the rocky crags on the pin- 
nacle of Sharp mountain (south of Henry Clay's Monument) 
into the declivity below and was killed. All because her father 
Sagawatch would not allow her to marry the dusky lover of her 
choice. It was said that on moonlight nights, in harvest time, 
she could be seen on a misty evening, through the clouds, taking 
the spring into the abyss below, her lover a close second, taking 
the leap after her, and Sagawatch leaning over the crest of the 
mountain to watch the lovers going to their certain death. 
AYhether these ghostly sights were only apparent to those Avho 
had been imbibing too freely of spirits of another brand, or 



©in ^cijiislfeill EaltB. 14^ 



whether they were the innocent victims of hallucinations of the 
brain, will be left to the vivid imagination of the reader to con- 
jecture. 



EARLY HISTORY OF PINEGROVE 



There were settlers about this vicinity as early as 1755. but 
it was not until about 1795, that a small settlement was formed 
about Jacob's Church, next to Zion's or the Red Church, near 
Orwigsburg, the oldest church in the county, about two miles 
below the present town of Pinegrove, then a part of Berks 
County. It was not until about 1830, that the village had any 
reputation as a town, when it contained thirty-one houses. The 
farmers in the three rich valleys centering here brought their 
grist to Fegley's mill, on the Swatara creek. The blacksmith's 
shop, three hotels, and three stores with the mill, formed the 
business nucleus, from which the town subsequently sprang. 

The original name of the town was Barrstown. This was 
changed to Pinegrove in 1829. The name proper is Pine Grove, 
with the accent on the last half of the word instead of making 
a compound word and giving it a nasal inflection on the first 
part. The first church in the town was built in 1817. 

The Union Canal, from Lebanon to Pine Grove was com- 
pleted in 1832. The coal was first hauled down from the mines 
in wagons. In 1832, the canal company built a railroad, from 
the junction to the canal, a little over three miles. The first 
coal operators were Caleb Wheeler, Jas. C. Oliver (who lived 



148 ©It Sdjuulkill ^Talfs. 



in Pottsville), and John Stees (father of Fred. Stees, of Phila- 
delphia, and for so many years jSTational President of the P. O 
S. A.), who operated the mammoth vein, at the head of Lor- 
berry creek. The coal was brought from the mines in cars 
containing from 2^ to 2f tons. They ran down a plane from 
Lorberry, and it took one horse or a mule to haul an empty car 
back again from the junction to the mine. 

In 1840, the Swatara Railway was built, from the Junc- 
tion to Tremont and Donaldson. It was laid with "T" rails 
instead of the wooden article used heretofore. The to^vn of 
Tremont w^as laid out the same year by Messrs. PoUweiler, Mil- 
ler and Hippie. (A son of the latter. Dr. Charles Hippie, mar- 
ried Delia, a daughter of Judge Seitzinger, of Pottsville, and 
subsequently removed to the West.) 

Judge Donaldson, who lived at the corner of Market and 
Sixth streets, Pottsville, a handsome old mansion and private 
residence now occupied by T. W. Marquart, grocer, laid out 
Donaldson. The tonnage of the Donaldson coal operation was 
shipped over the Union Canal. 

In 1852, the Schuylkill and Susquehanna Railroad Com- 
l^any extended its railroad from Rauscli Gap to Auburn, con- 
necting there with the Reading Railroad, and thus giving Pine- 
grove an additional outlet for the shipment of coal. 

The Millers, Levi Miller, Sr., and son, Daniel Miller, form- 
ing the companies Miller and ]\Iiller, in which was also inter- 
ested Levi Miller, Jr., and the firm Miller, Graeff and Co., 
were important factors in the coal trade of the West End. The 
old Lincoln colliery proved a perfect bonanza to its owners. 
The newer operation, of the same name, was also a profitable 



©It) Sdjuglkill STalcs. 149 



investment. The firm also mined, for a time, an operation at 
the Flour Barrel, nnder the name of Miller, Maize & Co. The 
Lincoln Colliery was among the collieries purchased by the P. 
& E. Company. 

On the night of June 2, 18 G2, a heavy freshet broke the 
dam at Berger's mill. The water brought ruin and destruction 
with it. Mills, dams, bridges, canal banks, everything, went 
down with the flood. The canal Avas never rebuilt, the ruin 
was too disastrous, 

Pinegrove has suffered heavily under the discriminations 
against it in the way of railway connections, the abandonment 
of the canal and the working out of some of the mines. It has 
progressive citizens who have made, and are still making her- 
culean efforts to retrieve the business fortunes of the town and 
with partial success. A large steam tannery, a brickyard and 
several small industrial establishments, are but a modicum of 
these ventures hazarded at various times. Pinegrove enjoys the 
distinction of having the largest amount of invested capital of 
any town in the county in proportion to its population. 



A PASTOR'S ADVICE 



Everyone for miles around knew "Parrah" Henry, the pas- 
tor of the old stone Lutheran Church, in the beautiful town of 
Pinegrove. He was there for almost a half-century, and bap- 



150 ©It ^c|}iioH>ilI QTaks. 

tized, confirmed and buried more people than the half-dozen 
other clergymen of that faith in the county, or of those that 
preceded him. 

Of the latter there was one who shall be nameless. "Par- 

rah " came to Pinegrove on a Saturday from a town farther 

down the line, making a circuit of perhaps forty miles on horse- 
back to fill his charges. The ''Parrah" was a genial and jolly 
pastor and enjoyed letting himself down to the plane of the 
people, and even sometimes below that level. He liked a game 
of cards and a social glass and frequently forgot himself in the 
indulgences of the fiowing bowl, for which act he would after- 
wards despise himself. But the times were different in those 
days, and such license on his part was overlooked by the mem- 
bers of his congregation if he was able to appear at church the 
following morning and preach one of the strong sermons that 
was sure to follow such an indulgence. 

He stopped at the only hotel in the town, and the usual 
crowd was there on Saturday night, and on one occasion, he was, 
as often before, somewhat unsteady when he was helped to bed. 
He arose betimes for church, and as was his wont, his self- 
abasement and castigation of himself was more than usually 
rigorous. He preached on the sin of self-indulgence, gross 
eating, and gTOsser drinking, and was particularly severe on 
card playing. The congregation was large and became somewhat 
overwrought as he proceeded to admonish them on the error of 
their sinful ways. 

Finally he leaned over the high pulpit, and with tears 
streaming down his face and with outstretched hands, he said : 

"My«dear children, for I love you all like a beloved Father 



©Iti Scbuolkill (ITalcs. 151 



loves his cliildren. Do not do as I do, but do as I say/' and 
then he sank back and sat down in the big pulpit chair and shed 
tears until every eye in the congregation was moistened. 



EARLY EDUCATIONAL FACILITIES 



From an old deed is gleaned the fact that John and Sarah 
Ann Bannan, April 9, 1829, for the consideration of $20, "good 
and lawful money," conveyed to the Trustees of the Orwigs- 
burg Academy, a lot of ground on Mifflin street. The former 
owner was Daniel Graeff. The witnesses, Frederick Hesser and 
G. R^^usch. The trustees of the Academy: John Schall, George 
Hillega^, E(lv;ard Canner, John P. Woolison, George Grim, 
Joseph Morgan, Daniel Medlar and Jacob Hammer. A brick 
building was erected on the ground by the County. The State 
appropriated $2,000 for school purposes, and the Orwigsburg 
Academy was established. 

The Academy, a school for boys, had a succession of ex- 
cellent teachers. Joseph Ottinger, Leyman, Comly, Carter, of 
Dickinson College, and Penfield, who afterward taught in the 
Pottsville public schools. James Inness, a well-known citizen 
of Pottsville, and teacher subsequently in the Pottsville Acad- 
emy, was a popular teacher. Of the coterie Paul Beck Carter 
enjoyed an excellent reputation for erudition and fine scholastic 
atfainments. He prepared Thomas Bannan, Andrew J. Douglas, 



152 ©I^ Sdjuulkill CEaks. 



Collins P. Whitfield, John T. Shoener (afterward District x\t- 
tornej nnder Howell Fisher) and Henry Hammer for Yale 
College. The trio left school for Yale, where thev snbsequently 
graduated with honors, but Hammer decided upon a business 
career and did not pursue his studies any further. 

They lost sight of their former teacher, but during the 
Civil War, Henry Hammer, of the llGth Eegt. Penna. Vols. 
while in Philadelphia, in a clerical capacity for the U. S. ser- 
vice, to which he had been detailed, was approached in the office 
by a dirty, unkempt, ragged and forlorn looking old tramp, who 
asked for assistance. Daniel Focht, a prominent Philadelphia 
merchant, formerly of Ringgold, another of the Orwigsburg 
Academy pupils, was present, and he recognized in the mendi- 
cant, Paul Beck Carter, fonner Yale graduate, fluent scholar, 
and polished gentleman, their early teacher. The man took 
what they gave him, but refused further assistance. "He could 
not reform," he said, and disappeared. 

With the establishment of the public school system, the 
Academy was discontinued. After the removal of the Court 
House and prison to Pottsville, the old stone jail was refitted 
on one side for public school purposes, and the bell on the brick 
Academy, on the opposite side of the street, was used to call 
the children to school. The ringing of the bell was manipulated 
by a wire rope that ran across the street, and was rung by the 
teacher in the old jail building. 

After the removal of the County seat from Orwigsburg to 
Pottsville — which event was celebrated with a great glorification 
in Pottsville — the Court House was used as a boarding and day 
school. The Arcadian Institute was opened in it. by one Burn- 



©Ifa SdjuoUuIl (Talcs. 153 



side, and Lis assistants, in 1852. It was a snccessful venture 
for a time. Elias Schneider assumed charge of the school, but 
closed it to teach in the Pottsville Academy. Prof. Joseph 
Jackson, afterward principal of the Pottsville High School, was 
an assistant. Mr. Schneider returned after several years and 
re-opened the school, but was not successful. The building was 
subsequently deeded to the town by the County. A shoe factory, 
in which the leading citizens were interested, was incorporated 
and it was turned over to the company for shoe manufacturing 
purposes, for which it is still used. 



THE EARLY TEACHERS 



Some of the early teachers were men of ability and learn- 
ing. Others were like Ichabod Crane as described in the 
'•'Legend of Sleepy Hollow." The schoolmaster Avas abroad. 
With the early German settlers it was a common custom to em- 
ploy the same man as preacher and schoolmaster. These 
teachers Avere frequently not ordained ministers, but filled the 
office through preference. In 1751, the churches of Holland 
started a scheme to establish a course of instruction for the chil- 
dren of the Germans in Pennsylvania. Two thousand gilders 
per annum for five years, dating from 1751, were collected and 
applied to this purpose. Certain British noblemen were moved 
to assist in the cause and the king granted £1,000 toward the 



154 ©ItJ Sdjuolkill ErIcq. 



project. Trustees were appointed and a visitor and supervisor 
was found in Rev. Sclilater, who was directed to take the estab- 
lishment of the schools in charge These schools were established 
at Reading, York, Lancaster and Easton. 

The first steps taken to provide for the education of the 
poor children under the Common School System of Pennsyl- 
vania were the laws enacted in 1809 and 1824. Schuylkill 
County was slow- to take advantage of them. It was about 1835 
when the first public school was opened in Pottsville, although 
an ungraded school was held in the log school house on the site 
of the Centre street Grammar School building. Prior to that 
time, the former school for boys was held in the Quaker Meeting 
House. A stone school building was subsequently erected ad- 
joining the log house on Centre street, and another on West 
ISTorwegian street, on the site of the Garfield building. With 
the passage of the law in 1854, creating the ofiice of County 
Superintendent, came the regular system of grading the schools, 
the raising of the curriculum and a constant and steady im- 
provement in the facilities, resulting in a public school system 
which has no superior, if indeed its equal, in any part of the 
Commonwealth . 

Private schools were common. Among the teachers were 
James P. Hough, Rev. A. Pryor, an Episcopal clergyman and 
father of Mrs. C. M. Atkins, who conducted a school in the 
residence, southwest corner of Fifth and Market streets. Mrs. 
McDonald and the Misses McCamant conducted girls' schools. 
The Lutheran Church had its school. Daniel Klock, an ex- 
cellent teacher, met with a misfortune to his limb and lived for 
a time at Auburn and subsequently with his wife, was compelled 



©in ^cbuuHu'U ^Talcs. 155 



to become an inmate of the County Home. Some of the first 
business men of the town were pupils under him. James Hough 
kept school in a room built on his lot, corner of Centre and 
Sanderson streets. He afterward conducted a night school in 
the first Evangelical Church. Hough w-as the strictest of dis- 
ciplinarians, and many were the stories told of his cruelty. He 
turned out good scholars, nevertheless. 

Prof. Getler or Gertlcr held school in the Panther Valley 
about 1828. He was of the old type of teacher and often cruel 
in the extreme. He walked about constantly and thrashed the 
boys with a bunch of sticks he carried. One of his methods 
of punishment was to thumb the boys behind the ears. Spell- 
ing was his hobby. An early pupil was inclined to learn all 
he could, and one morning "trapped" to the head of the class. 
That was not the end. At noon a class bully, who had been 
head, waylaid him and beat him severely. In the afternoon, 
he felt sore at the drubbing he had received and was more or 
less inattentive, when Gertler gave him another thrashing on 
his already raw legs. 

Gertler was subsequently a night-school teacher in one of 
the Pottsville churches. His scholars were good spellers and 
adepts with the pen. 

One of the greatest wonders in the teaching line was 
Samuel Gesley, w^ho taught at Orwigsburg and other points in 
the county. He was an armless man and had deformed feet. 
His specialty was writing. He turned out some of the most 
beautiful specimcus of penmanship and fancy scrolls. He ma- 
nipulated the pen wath his toes and could punish a boy with the 
ruler for an irregular scratch or blot as well as if he had two 



156 ©l^ ^djuolkill ^Talcs. 



or even four liaiids. He taught writing in Pottsville, subse- 
quently, and finally, in his old age, traveled with a circus, visit- 
ing his home town with Barnum's on its first visit in 1870. 
He had learned additional feats during the interim and fired 
off a pistol with his crippled toes. He was a man with a most 
remarlcable ambition for learning and had a fine head. It was 
said of him, ''that in spite of being so severely handicapped by 
nature, he mastered everything he undertook.'' To see him 
turn the leaves of a book with his teeth and a twist of his head 
was a studv in itself. 



PETER F. MUDEY 



Peter F. Mudey was an old-time public school teacher. A 
man of fine ph^^sique, strict principles and greatly beloved. He 
was an old-time Democrat but not a strict partisan. It wa-? 
durins; the vear of the revulsion after the inauguration of 
Martin Van Buren as president of the United States, when 
there was so much pecuniary distress. The Whigs believed that 
the government was bound to attempt something to relieve the 
situation, and the President and his party maintained that the 
faults of the people had brought about the crisis and that in- 
dividual effort alone Avould restore prosperity. In the mean- 
time, President Van Buren projected a plan for the keeping 
of the government finances, called the "Sub-treasury" scheme, 
which was subsequently very unpopular with the people and 



(©It SdiiiiuIkfU Caks. 157 



resulted in the overthrow of the Democratic party at the next 
presidential election. The question at issue was : 

"Shall the public money be kept in a United States Bank 
or remain in an independent treasury ?" 

Mr. Mudey was approached for his opinion on the subject, 
when he related the following: 

"A iine horse that had followed the chase, borne his master 
to the wars and held an honored place in the stud of high pedi- 
gree in the nobleman's stables, had the misfortune to break his 
leg, and instead of being shot, as was ordered, to end his misery, 
was traded off to satisfy the cupidity of a dishonest groom. 
He fell into bad hands, where he was obliged to follow the 
plow. Menial labor broke the poor creature's spirit and at last 
it lay down by the road-side to die." 

"A benevolent man, passing that way, took the branch of a 
tree and attempted to brush off the loathesome, big bottle flies 
that had settled in and about the wounded leg, gloating in its 
putrefaction. 

"When the old war horse raised his head and spoke, be- 
seeching the man to let the flies alone. 

" 'These pests, he said, have had their fill. If you drive 
them away, a new horde will take their place and I will suffer 
the more.' So it Avill be with a change of administration," said 
Mr. Mudey. 

General Harrison, a Whig, was, however, elected and died 
a month later, and Vice-president Tyler false to the trust 
reposed in him by the Whigs, refused to hold himself amen- 
able to the party that elected him and vetoed two of the bills 



158 ©ItJ ^cf)U2lfein (lalfs. 



passed by Congress to re-establish a national bank, and the first 
set of flies remained in possession of the pnblic moneys. 



QUAKER MEETING HOUSE 



In 1S31, a piece of gronnd near the corner of Xinth and 
Howard Avenue was donated to the Society of Friends by 
Samuel Griscom and Thomas Lightfoot for the building thereon 
of a meeting house. It was a stone building, with a basement 
of a dark slate color. Meetings were held there during the 
'Thirties, when they were discontinued on account of removal 
of Friends. The first public school for boys was held in this 
building. In 1846, Elias Schneider opened, in it, a private 
school for boys. The quarters were too small and a company 
Avas formed and the Academy built adjoining the meeting house. 
It was completed in 1846. The first teachers were: Prof. 
Porter, principal; Duncan, assistant; Elias Schneider, Kirk- 
wood, Angel, Chas. Pitman, Christopher Little, Prof. Angela, 
James Inness, Schmitt, Albion Spinney, a noted astronomer, 
and Amos Lewis. Among the boys who Avent to the Academy 
were : John T. Carpenter, Peal, James Patterson, Francis Ban- 
nan, James Campbell, member of Congress and minister to 
ISTorway; Robert Palmer, minister to South America; Lin 
Bartholomew; A. H. Ilalberstadt, D. W. Bland, J. T. Boyle, 
O. C. Bosbyshell, L. C. Thompson and others. 



®Hj Scj^uglltill SEales. 159 



The building was subsequently used for hospital purposes 
during the Civil War, to house the sick soldiers from the en- 
campment of U. S. forces, on Lawton's Hill and West Mahan- 
tongo Street. Henry Russel, Esq., remodeled it into a hand- 
some residence and at this writing it is still in possession of the 
family. 



HENRY C. RUSSEL 



It was during the lifetime of the former. Mr. Russel Avas 
sitting on the broad portico of his home, enjoying the cool 
breezes from the adjacent mountain toj^ as they wafted through 
the magnificent big oaks that surround the old mansion, when 
he was accosted by a middle-aged man whom he did not recol- 
lect ever having seen before. 

"How do you do, sir," said the stranger. Mr. Russel re- 
plied, not w^ithout some asperity, "How do you do, what can 
I do for you, sir ?" 

"JSTot much, but will you toll me, sir, where Mrs. McCon- 
nicle's candy shop is ? It used to stand about here ; I am very 
tihirsty and she made such good mead. I would like to get a 
glass and a gingerbread loaf." 

"Oh, John , you rascal," said Mr. Russel, spring- 
ing up and taking the man by the hand, "how dare you try such 
a gag on me as that ? 

"Mrs. McConnicle is dead these forty years, and that," 
pointing to the German Sisters' Home, "is her monument." 



160 ©Iti ^djuoIkt'U 2ralcs. 



Two of the old Aeadeniy boys had met again after a long 
interim of years. 

It was about the same period, or early in the 'Forties, when 
Miss Marcia Allen established her school for young ladies. 
She was a woman of line intelligence and the strictest probity 
of character. After more than a quarter of a century's faith- 
ful service, her health failed and she left for California, where 
she resided at Los Angeles until her death. 

A pleasant feature was a re-union of her scholars at the 
Henry Eussel residence on the occasion of a visit to Pottsville. 
Invitations were sent out broadcast and a number responded. 
It Avas a unique scene, not unmixed with pathos, when Miss 
Allen called the roll, after ringing the bell, and the girls, now 
matrons or spinsters of iniddle age, responded to their names ; 
and then as was her wont, she arose and offered prayer, not 
omitting to remember the absent ones, many of whom had gone 
to the '"Great Beyond." 

Among other teachers of private schools were : Miss Kate 
Ermentrout, ]Miss Annetta Strauch, Miss Emily McCool, Mrs. 
Laurey, and Miss Lewis. 



LETTER FROM MISS ALLEN 



The following is a copy of a letter presented to the Schuyl- 
kill Historical Society by Mrs. Sarah Bartholemew, who re- 
ceived it from Mrs. Patterson. It was written by Miss Marcia 
Maria Allen to B. F. Patterson, deceased, late Borough Super- 



(©Ill Sci^uglktU STales. 161 



intendent of the Public Schools of Pottsville. It is self-explana- 
tory. 

"Washixgtox, D. C, February 13, 1877. 
"Me. Patterson^ 

"Dear Sir : — I thank you that you have so kindly pro- 
I'Osed to mention my school in your report. I am really sorry 
that I have not a better Avork of which to speak. What I have 
"written, you can arrange, shorten or reject at your pleasure. 
If you wish something different, please let me know, and I will 
follow your suggestion. 

"Mr. John Shippen" (President of the Miners' ISTational 
Bank) "can tel'^'^^ou of this lady, of whom I make mention. 
I think she Avas his brother's widow. James A. Inness was her 
pupil. ]\Irs. Inness is at Port Clinton or at the Port Carbon 
]Iotel. She can tell you about the schools of that time and 
Mrs. Hammekin" (mother of Mrs. Dr. F. W. Boyer) "knows 
of the others. 

"Mrs. Hammekin taught a short time in the jmblic schools, 
in Pottsville, and afterward, for a little time with me." (She 
also subsequently conducted a private school for a short time.) 
"Miss Clement, another jSTew England lady, succeeded her in 
the public schools; Miss Young taught a family in St. Clair." 
(Afterward conducting a private school in the building, now 
the residence of F. P. Mortimer, Second Street, near corner of 
West ISTorwegian.) "Mrs. Charles Hill, Mrs. Hammekin's 
sister, first taught in Schuylkill Haven." (Afterward conduct- 
ing the Hill School on Howard Avenue, now successfully run 
by Mrs. S. A. Thurlow, wife of the Borough Superintendent of 
Public Schools.) "All of these taught in Pottsville and we 

11 



162 ©Iti SclbusH^ni STaUg. 



were graduates of the same school" (in New England). "I 
mention this becanse it seems to me unusual. 

"The public schools were in no way remarkable when I 
came to Pottsville. I was the first to hear a class in arithmetic, 
particularly mental arithmetic. A young lady said to me, 
'Miss Allen, what do you mean by a recitation in arithmetic?' 

"Mr. Charles Pitman had a boys' school at the time and 
was assisted by Mr. Inness. 

"I am sorry I cannot write more to my own satisfaction, 
in regard to schools; but as I have said before, if you will ask 
any questions or make any suggestions, I will try to do better. 

Very respectfully, ^_ 

M. iVirALLEX." 

"Miss M. M. Allen, a New Englander, and a graduate 
there, commenced a Select School in Pottsville, in 1843, keep- 
ing it up twenty-eight years, with considerable success. Mrs. 
Shippen, a widow, and her daughter had a private school before 
that time and conducted it well, if we may judge from the 
testimony of her pupils. Very many of the women of the pres- 
ent time in the region, were instructed by Miss Allen, in the 
lower and higher English branches, in Latin and French. The 
effort was to make them thinkers — discarding the merely 
ephemeral and choosing that which has true worth." 

Note : — B. F. Patterson came to Pottsville about 1865, He 
served first as the Principal of the High School, and after the re- 
tirement of Josiah P. Sherman, he was elected Borough Super- 
intendent of the Public Schools, which position he filled up to 
his death, July, 1906. Miss Allen speaks thus of her own work 
in response to the request by Mr. Patterson. 



PART IV 

HISTORY OF POTTSVILLE 



PART IV 



HISTORY OF POTTSVILLE 



WHO THE FIRST SETTLERS WERE 



Wl HEIST the Xeiman family built their little log cabin, in 
____ the locality that now forms part of Pottsville, there 
feS^J were none to dispute their claim to the possession of 
the land. The vast coal wealth of the county was as 
yet undiscovered and lying inert and uncovered within 
the bowels of the earth. The country was a howling wilderness, 
wild beasts roamed through the forests, and savages, merciless 
and cruel, were the foes they had to contend with. The Neimans 
lived on a knoll where the Pottsville Hospital now stands. The 
family consisted of a husband and wife, and two children. 
They were massacred by the Indians, September, 1780. 

Timber was cut in this locality as early as 1778, and rafts 
of logs were sent down the Schuylkill river to its mouth. Cap- 
tain Leary of the Continental Navy was stationed below Avhere 
the black railroad bridge, at Mt. Carbon, stands. His company 
of marines guarding the wood-choppers who were engaged in 

165 



166 ©Iti Sdjimlhtll clTalfS. 



felling the huge oak trees. This timber was rafted to the navy 
yard at Philadelphia, where it was used for the masts of vessels. 
Balser Gehr, of Reading, owned a saw mill at the mouth 
of Norwegian creek and the Schuylkill river. This mill was 
afterwards known as Bosslers, when it was rebuilt, Neiman 
had charge of the Gehr milk Doubtless there were other lum- 
bermen who worked hereabouts, but he was the only one who 
lived here. Conrad Minnich kept a hotel in 1790 where the 
Seven Stars hotel stands. It was only a humble log cabin 
for the housing and entertainment of the few hardy woodsmen 
who journeyed to and fro in their search for work or land to 
settle upon. 

Wm. F. Stimmel, of Kutztown, found on the Balser Gehr 
farm two iron door plates, cast in 1742, and sent them to Luther 
R. Kelker, of Harrisburg, September, 1906. 

There is no further record of early settlers on the site of 
Pottsville, until 1796. On April 7, 1795, William Zoll, inn- 
keeper of Reading, purchased a lot in Orwigsburg. It was 
located at the northwest entrance, and part of the ground was 
subsequently utilized for a tannery by his descendants. 

After tilling the ground for about a year, AVilliam Zoll 
removed in 1796, to what is now Pottsville, and established a 
small furnace or forge in the orchard on the site of the Green- 
wood furnace. The country was wild, Indians roamed about 
and lived in the mountain fastnesses, and malaria lurked in the 
marshy soil. He built a log cabin near the forge, -^hich was so 
arranged that the family could retire to the forge, which he 
fortified, in case of an attack from the Indians. Here was born 



©ItJ Scfeuglkill eraks. 167 



his son Joseph Zoll. His wife soon after contracted a low 
fever, from the effects of which she died. 

Alone with a small child the first settler became dis- 
couraged. During his working hours in the forge he kept the 
baby in a small wooden box suspended from a beam in the 
roof, and out of harm's way. In 1799, when the child was two 
years old, Zoll sold out the forge and cabin to Lewis Reese and 
Isaac Thomas, who enlarged and rebuilt the forge. Reese and 
Thomas settled on the Schneid Berg in 1Y96-99, or the north 
side of Sharp mountain. They in turn disposed of the property 
in 1806 to John Pott, who enlarged the plant and created the 
" Greenwood furnace," which stood on the corner of Coal and 
Maucli Chunk Streets, and from which " Greenwood Hill," 
above the site of the furnaces, was named 

Wm. Zoll, with his infant son Joseph, removed to his 
old home near Orwigsburg, where the latter for many years 
ran a tannery. The third of that name, Joseph Zoll number 
two, died several years ago, unmarried, thus practically wiping 
out the direct line of descent. Wm. Zoll was heard frequently 
to remark that he was the first settler here and that the town 
should have been called Zollville instead of " Pottsville." 
William Zoll was a soldier in the War of 1812, and a member 
of a Masonic lodge at Philadelphia, Joseph left several adult 
children when he died at the ripe age of eighty. The Orwigs- 
burg tannery was a large and successful business venture for 
those days. 

When Isaac Tliomas, Lewis Reese and Lewis Morris, 
enlarged the Zoll forge and built a furnace, they sent workmen 
here to dig a race and build a dam. Among them was John 
Reed, who brought his wife with him, and who built a small 



168 <©lti ^cijuDlkill ^Talcs. 

log house two stories high for their home. This house stood 
about sixty feet east of the hospital, on what is now Mauch 
Chunk Street, and here Jeremiah Reed, the first white child 
born in Pottsville, saw the light of day, December 19th, 1800. 
John Reed and wife were born about five miles south of this 
place, toward Orwigsburg. 

Reese and Thomas built a small charcoal furnace on the 
island where after\vard were located the Pioneer furnaces of 
the Atkins brothers. In 1804, John Pott, Sr., bought from 
Lewis Reese, Isaac Thomas and Sarah Morris, the ground on 
which the settlement had been made, including the Zoll, May- 
field, Moorfield and Physic tracts of land. 

When this purchase was made the only houses hereabouts 
were: the John Reed dwelling, before referred to; the Cook 
house, corner of Coal and Washington Streets, where afterward 
stood the John L. Pott's iron works; the Alspach house, on the 
site of the Charles Baber residence ; the Swoyer house, near the 
Philadelphia and Reading freight depot, near which also stood 
the Nathan Taylor house. A family named Schott lived on 
Lawton's Hill, west of the F. W. Hughes' residence. 

After the building of the larger furnace in 1806, by John 
Pott, the construction of a straggling row of houses was at 
once begun. They extended through the orchard and eventu- 
ally over the marsh and creek to the higher ground now Centre 
Street This was practically llie openinn and foundation of 
the town, men came to work in the furnace and the homes 
erected for their families were the nucleus and others soon 
followed. 

April 27, 1808, Lewis Reese sold to John Pott 227 acres of 
land which covers the old site of the town of Pottsville. The 



©lb Srfuslfetll CalES. 169 



town was laid out in 1816, but it was not until 1828 that it was 
regularly incorporated. John Pott died. His son John Pott 
built a distillery in 1819'. He was the proprietor of a small 
two story hotel, known as the White Horse tavern, which was 
a stopping place for the stages on the Sunbury road. In 1824 
there w-ere five scattered dwellings in the vicinity of tlie Pott 
tavern between what is now Mahantongo and ISTorwegian on 
Centre Street. Others had built along the early roads and 
when the surveys were made, as in the city of Boston, the old 
cow paths and turnpike, with, their irregular twistings and 
turnings were not disturbed, but only made the pivotal centres 
for other and more regular thoroughfares. 

John Pott, Sr., took possession of the Alspacli house. He 
weather-boarded it and had it painted red and it became the 
Pott famil}'' home. In this house was born Hannah Pott, 
grand daughter of John Pott, Sr., and daughter of Benjamin 
Pott. She was the first girl baby born in Pottsville and after- 
w^ard became the wife of Lawrence F. Whitney. 

In 1810, the year in which John Pott removed to the 
settlement, he built the stone grist mill, known as the Orchard 
mill and afterw^ard operated by Stein & Trough. In 1815 ho 
built a stone mansion for the occupancy of his family. This 
house stood on the site of the brick house owned by Thomas 
Schollenberger and now occupied by his sister, Mrs. Sarah Bar- 
tholomew. He also built a barn opposite where the Pottsville 
Hospital now stands. 

In the early days the old Sunbury road, from Reading to 
Simbury, wound around the hill near the point where the Henry 
Clay monument now stands. From there it ran to York fann, 
Bulls Head, thence to Minersville. Centre Street was then 



170 ®lti ^c!)UDlkilI STalcs. 



a dense hemlock swamp thickly covered with bushy under- 
growth, the turnpike road was not entirely completed until 
1812 and even then there was much complaint about the lack of 
stones and the plentitude of mud on Centre Street. It was not 
until 1816 or 1817, that Centre Street from Mahantongo to 
west Race Street was covered with stones. 

The State road was layed out in 1770. It entered Pottsville 
near Furnace Island, it ran on the right hand side of the creek 
and marsh, about Coal Street, toward Fishbach, joining the main 
road again at Bull's Head. There is a difference of opinion as 
to which was the main branch, this or the road that ran around 
the hill opposite. 

The survey in ISIG to lay out the town in lots began at 
Church Alley, or Howard Street, and extended to west Race 
Street. The plot included all the ground from Second on the 
west to Railroad Street on the east; from Union Street on the 
south to west Race ; Norwegian Street extended west to Fifth 
Street and east to Railroad Street. 

Pottsville is beautifully situated above the gorge through 
which the Schuylkill river breaks through the Sharp mountain. 
At no point in the town can the dimensions of the town plot 
be seen. Closely hemmed in by spurs of mountains and wooded 
hills, to obtain a perfect view of the town and the beauty of 
its surroundings it is necessary to climb to a point on the steepest 
declivity and here a scene of unequalled grandeur may be en- 
joyed. The town as it now exists, extends into five distinct 
valleys, gravitating at the centre with the old original town 
plot as layed out in 1816. 

When the town was first formed it was made up of small 
settlements: Morrisville, now Morris Addition; Greenwood, 



©It) Sc^uglkill Za\z&. 171 



now Greenwood Addition, or more recently the Orchard; and 
Mt. Carbon. Salem included Young's Landing, Bath and Allen- 
ville, with Salem and Buckleysville, are now obsolete as names. 
When Pottsville was incorporated in 1828, there was a strong 
effort made to absorb it into Mt. Carbon, then a thriving ship- 
])ing mart, and name it Mt. Carbon. Ilesse-Stettle, a suburb 
of later growth, now known as Yorkville, was settled in the 
'forties although there were a few scattered log houses on the 
main road toward Sunbury as early as 1812. They were thrifty 
Cerman settlers from Hesse-Darmstadt who gave the settlement 
its name Hesse-Stettle. 



SITE OF CENTRE STREET TWENTY-FIVE 
DOLLARS 



The descendants of Charles Siegfreid, the Hookeys, Eilers 
and Russels, tell the following story: Charles Siegfreid, black- 
smith, from near Port Clinton came to Pottsville in 1807, after 
the opening of the Greenwood furnace, where he worked for 
several years. On one occasion money was scarce, John Pott 
owed Siegfried $25, as it was not forthcoming, he offered his 
employee several acres of ground to cancel the debt. The 
ground included all of the tract from a point near the corner 
of Mauch Chunk Street, east side, to a tree on Lawton's Hill 
opposite the Grammar School building, Siegfreid said, " What 
do I want with that swamp, Pll wait until you get the money," 
which he did, Mr. Pott paying the claim. 



172 ©III ^cfjnaHulI ^Talcs. 



Siegfreid was a powerfnllv built man and fond of dis- 
playing bis prowess. In after years a son-in-law of bis, Daniel 
Eiler, a qniet and inoffensive man was loading a car of coal on 
bis wagon at tbe corner of Coal and East ISTorwegian streets, 
wbere a landing was maintained for tbe loading of boats on tbe 
canal, a brancb of wbicb ran to tbat point. 

It was first-come first-served and eacb took tbeir turn. 
Dan Holland, of Cressona, sometbing of a scrapper and anotber 
heavy weigbt, took advantage of bis reputation and would wait 
for no one. Wben tbe little box cars came down tbe wooden 
rails he advanced to tbe bead of tbe line filled bis wagon and 
was off, Siegfreid beard of this and came to tbe landing to en- 
force fair play. His son-in-law was first on that day, when 
Holland came and as usual, went to tbe head of tbe line. A few 
well directed sledge hammer blows by Siegfreid on Holland's 
anatomy convinced him tbat discretion was tbe better part 
of valor and he was never known to take other than bis rightful 
place thereafter. 

Charles Siegfreid was a soldier in tbe war of IS 12. Wben 
he died he was given a large military funeral. Apropos of this 
it must be borne in mind that when tbe military of this locality 
enlisted in tbe War of 1812 they walked from Pottsville to 
Heading and from thence, wbere they joined others, that bad 
been drafted or enlisted, they walked to Baltimore and return. 
Mrs. John Wagner nee Schwab, of Pottsville, 87 years of age 
at this writing, remembers of tbe condition of her father's shoes 
and clothing on bis return to tbe Lykens Valley where the 
family lived. 

In 1818 all of tbe bouses included within tbe to^vn plot 
and not hitherto named were: Henry DonnelFs house on tbe 



©11) Sc!)U2lltin Caleg. 173 



first lot sold where now stands the Pennsylvania Hall; the Wil- 
liam Cassley Log house on the site of the Miller Bookstore, 
opposite; a log house about in the centre of the square, be- 
tween Mahantongo and Howard street, built by Joseph Bleck- 
ley; a house near the site of old Town Hall and the "White 
Horse Tavern, built by George Dengler and afterward kept by 
John Pott, Jr., Henry Donnell opened the first store in Potts- 
ville, in his new building, except that opened by the Pott 
family for their workmen. The Buckwalter Hotel afterward 
the ISTorthwestern, now the Park, was built before 1829. The 
Mortimer House, where the Mountain City building stands, 
now owned and occupied by the Mammoth Miehle Dry Goods 
and Department Store, was known as the Mt. Carbon Hotel 
and was built by Jacob Seitzinger in 1826. John Pott in 1824, 
sold the ground, 'N. E. corner of Centre and Mahantongo streets 
to T. Eidgeway. The lot changed hands a number of times, 
until 1830 when the Pottsville House was erected. The hotel 
also changed hands often, Col. Joseph M. Feger being one of 
its most popular landlords. In 1863 Daniel Esterly bought it 
and removed his hardware business to it after improving and 
remodeling it. Col. Shoemaker built the Penna Hall. On the 
southwest corner of Centre and Market streets was the Moyer 
Hotel, built by Daniel Moyer about 1826, and the Central or 
Lindenmuth Hotel, north of Market on the west side of Centre 
was kept by a man named Geist. In 1830 Jacob Seitzinger 
erected the Exchange Hotel, corner of Centre and west Arch 
streets. 



174 ©It) SdjiiDllull ^Tales. 



BEAR STORY 



Mrs. Sarah Gmnpert, deceased, wife of the late Samuel 
Gumpert who was an expert accountant and transcriber, and for 
eighteen years a clerk in the law offices of the Schuylkill County 
Court House, related many interesting stories of the early 
history of the county. Her parents lived in the Tumbling Run 
Valley. One wintry day in early December her father, Jos, 
Webb, started to walk to Orwigsburg over the Tumbling Ru7i 
Mountain. 

The family butchering had just been completed and as the. 
custom was among the early settlers, he intended to give a 
friend part of his killing, the frieud would return the gift later 
in the season and thus the two families would be kept supplied 
with fresh meat du.ring the winter. It was late in the after- 
noon when Mr. Webb started with the quarter of fresh beef 
hung over his shoulder. He had not reached the summit of the 
mountain before he discovered that he was being pursued and by 
a huge black bear. Bruin had scented the odor of the blood and 
was determined to exact with it not only the red corpuscles but 
"the pound of flesh," also. 

Mr. Webb was a large and powerfully built man and de- 
termined not to part with the meat if he conld help it. If he 
could reach the summit of the mountain with it he might mako 
the descent and save the beef. Pie had no weapon with him bat 
his huge clasp knife which was stuck in the belt at his waist and 
the mad race began. The bear gained steadily on the man. He 
could almost feel his hot breath and his heavy panting would 
have dismayed any but one of the sturdiest of the old-timers. 



(Bib Scf)uglkill Eu\t&. 175 



The four-footed pursuer had almost reached his prey when 
Mr. Webb bethought himself and took his huge knife and cut off 
a slice of meat and dropped it for the bear and sped on as rapid- 
ly as he could hoping to at least save some of the beef. But the 
slice merely whetted bruin's appetite and he was up and after 
the farmer again with full speed. The operation was repeated 
again and again and still Mr. Webb ran on. The speed down 
the mountain, of both, became little short of terrific. 

At last Orwigsburg came in sight, the bear would turn 
back he thought, or someone would see him and come to his 
assistance. No one came and Mr. Webb feeling his load be- 
coming very light discovered that he was carrying a few beef 
ribs on his shoulder the rest of the meat having been devoured 
by the bear. He vented his chagrin by tossing the carcass to 
the brute and had nothing to offer his friend but the story of his 
adventure when he reached his home. When the latter brought 
his gift in return some months later to the Webbs, he came by 
wagon, up the Sunbury turnpike road, not caring to encounter 
another or even the same hungry bear that Joseph Webb fed, 
like a dog, with a quarter of beef. 



ON THE ROAD TO HEAVEN 



"Granny" Lash, as she was familiarly known, was one of 
the quaint characters of the early days in Pottsville. She lived on 
the road to Port Carbon, was a strict Methodist and one of the 
first members of the class established by Jonathan Wynn. She 



176 ®ItJ Scfjuylitin (lalrs. 



lived to a ripe old age and saw many innovations creep into the 
church of her choice. Granny was loud in her denunciation 
of instrumental music in the church and thoroughly disliked 
the first melodeon and organ introduced. 

On one occasion a young musician, a visitor to town from 
Philadelphia, played a violin solo at the service at the request 
of a member of the church, whose guest he was. Tlie selection 
was a simple old-fashioned hymn tune around which the player 
wove numerous delicate fancies and musical intertwinings and 
variations. At the close of the service, the old lady said : 

" That was beautiful. It made me feel so happy." " Why 
Granny! " said the member, " I thought you would not like it; 
that you would think it a sin." 

" Oh, a violin is all right," said Granny. " If it had been 
a fiddle it would have been different. I love a violin; but I 
just hate a fiddle." 

Granny was fond of walking and as she grew more de- 
crepit she sometimes lost her bearings on her road home from 
church. Passing her home one day she was toiling on toward 
Port Carbon when she was accosted by a young girl of the 
neighborhood with : 

" Granny where are you going? You are on the wrong 
road." '^ I am on the road to Heaven, Miss! and that is enough 
for you to know," answered the dame. She did not object to 
being turned around, however, and it was not very long after- 
\vard that she started out for that destination afresh. 



(Bib ^cfniglkill (JTales. 177 



A NEGRO GRAFTER 



One of the sights on a certain day of the week in Pottsville, 
was the incoming of the farmers from the Mahantongo ("Mocka- 
timkey") Valley. These townships, upper and lower, with 
Barry were very fertile and productive and the fruits of the fine 
farms found their market in Pottsville. The farmers and 
hucksters came in and departed together and formed a regular 
caravan, with their green Conestoga wagons one after another, 
high back and front and covered with white canvass hoop- 
framed top-covers. As many as seventy wagons were counted in 
the hotel yards on one night. At first some of this produce was 
shipped down the line by canal but the population of the county 
increased so rapidly that it was soon all consumed at home. 

One, ^'Old man Rater," was a regular weekly visitor. 
Hanging about the old White Horse Tavern, kept then by Wm. 
Matz, was a half grown negro boy, black as the ace of spades, 
who came from the Long Swamp and could talk Dutch. He 
ingratiated himself with the farmers and Avas always the richer 
by a pocketful of coppers after market day. He would accost 
Rater with : 

''Father, give me a penny, as sure as I live I have not eaten 
a mouthful this day." The penny forthcoming, he bought a 
huge gingerbread and munched it in the farmer's presence, 
seemingly contented. 

One morning he came as usual, with a gingerbread in each 
hand, and apparently forgetful of the fact, whined as usual, be- 
tween the mouthfuls: 

12 



178 ©Iti Scl)uslkill Eak&. 



"Daddy gib mir ein bense. Ich hab ga wis ich labe, heit 
noch nix gessen." 

A few well directed kicks from Rater disposed of the 
youthful manipulator of gingerbread trusts and he was seen no 
more about old man Rater's Conestoga craft on market day, nor 
in the tavern vard. 



HAD A GIFT OF REPARTEE 



One evening during the 'fifties, the old Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, on Second Street, was more than usually crowded. 
The Rev. Wm. Barnes, familiarly known as "Old Billy Barnes," 
was the pastor. (He must not be confounded with the Rev. 
Samuel Barnes who served the congregation later.) He was a 
most exemplary man and a radical preacher and when thor- 
oughly warmed up handled wicked doers and the imrighteoua 
without gloves. 

Mr. Barnes had been very much annoyed by the frivolous 
conduct of several young people in the church and he publicly 
reprimanded them from the pulpit. One of the young women 
became very much incensed at the action of the clergyman 
and arose to go out but not without first showing her contempt 
at the reproof by laughing aloud. Mr. Barnes said : 

"Good-night, daughter of the Devil!" 

" Good-night, Father! " said the girl. 

[This story has been claimed in Lancaster, where Mr. 
Barnes also served as pastor, but there are several members of 



(B\ti Scfjuglkill Ea\z&. 179 



the M. E. Church of Pottsville still living who were present 
when the incident occurred, who are willing to vonch for its 
accuracy.] 



ANOTHER CLAIM FOR NAME, THE SAME YET 

DIFFERENT 



The town was named after John Pott, the founder, who 
came here in 1806. The place was known as Pott's at tho 
coal mine (pronounced "Putts"), and after the incorporation, 
was known by the Gemian settlers in the southern part of the 
county, as " Buttsville." 

The early newspapers and the first settlers took the matter 
up and it was asserted that Pott (Pot) had been corrupted 
through the Pennsylvania German to " Put," and the name 
of the town was " Potsville " (Pottsville). 

During the 'seventies, however, Ramsey Potts, Esq., con- 
tended that Pottsville was named from the first, " Pottsville," 
after William B. Pott, an ancestor of his, who was an old-time 
settler and one of the first lawyers at the old county-seat, 
Orwigsburg. 

This was the same Wm. B. Potts who so vehemently op- 
posed the removal of the Court House from Orwigsburg to 
Pottsville. When the great parade and glorification took place 
and the windows of the houses of the new county town were 
illuminated with rows upon rows of tallow candles, Mr. Potts 
followed a float representing the Orwigsburg Court House, 



180 ©III Scfjuulkill (Ealcs. 



clinging to a rope hitched to the rear and objecting at every 
turn of the wheels to the seat of justice being taken away. It 
was one of the leading features of the event. 

Quite a spirited discussion over the matter ensued between 
Mr. Potts and Colonel Robert H. Eams^Vj and the tilt between 
them furnished lively reading matter for a time in the "Miners' 
Journal" of town. 

The name, however, according to both parties was Potts- 
ville, and Pottsville it has remained ever since, with John 
Pott, who did so much for the town, as the acknowledged 
founder. He died October 23, 1827, before the town was in- 
corporated. 

With the building of Greenwood Furnace small houses 
w^ere erected for the workmen. These were occupied by John 
Else, Henry Bolton, Thomas Swayer, Anthony Schott, George 
Frevie, George Reimer and Daniel Fbcht, Clerk. These men 
and their families all lived here before Mr. Pott removed his 
family from Berks County, in 1809. 

There were other settlers at Mt. Carbon and other points, 
but it was not until the discovery of coal Avas put into practical 
use that the place attracted any considerable number of set- 
tlers. In 1828, with the incorporation of the town, a daily 
stage to Philadelphia was established, making the trip in four- 
teen hours. 



THE FIRST RAILWAYS 



Schuylkill County had seen the evolution in travel from 
the Indian path, common road and bridle path, Durham boat, 



©Iti Scl^iiglkill Ealte. 181 

stage coach and Conestoga wagon, to the Philadelphia and Read- 
ing railway, completed in 1842. In the month of May, of 
that year, a train of fifty cars carrying 150 tons of coal was 
sent from Schuylkill Haven to the port at Richmond, making 
the trip in one day. 

The first railway was the Mill Creek, begun in 1829, and 
extended from Port Carbon to the Broad Mountain. The 
Schuylkill Valley Railway, was commenced in 1829 and fin- 
ished in 1830. It extended from Port Carbon to Tuscarora. 
The !N^orwegian and Mount Carbon Railway, which was de- 
signed to meet the Danville railroad to Pottsville, was completed 
in 1831. 

The Mine Hill and Schuylkill Haven railroad extended 
from Schuylkill Haven to the Broad Mountain, a line of 15 
miles. The Little Schuylkill Railway extended from Port 
Clinton to Tamaqua, a distance of 22 miles. 

All of these roads were run by horse power and connected 
with the Schuylkill canal. The Tamaqua Railway was the 
first to run a steam engine. It burned pitch pine and was quite 
a novelty. 

Tlie Philadelphia and Reading road was the first to use 
steam motive power. The engines were wood burners. When 
the road to Philadelphia was completed a jubilee was given 
in honor of the event and people came from far and wide to 
see the novelty. The celebration lasted several days and the 
people were carried free. The cars were only open platform- 
trucks and rude freight cars Av-ith 'rough wooden benches, 
loosely constructed, set on top. Many that accepted the com- 
pany's invitation felt that they were not only taking their lives 
in their hands, but placing them at a great risk in the hands of 



182 <Biti &d)m\ki\\ STalcB. 



others. General Winfield Scott, afterward a candidate for the 
presidency, came up, and the occasion was a momentous one for 
the coal regions. 



THE FIRE DEPARTMENT 



Before the days when a town water supply existed and 
the people depended upon the public pumps for their water 
for domestic purposes, a bucket brigade existed for the extin- 
guishing of fires. In 1830, a fire took place in Clinton Row 
(where Union Hall now stands), on Mahantongo Street, and in 
1831 the store of Lewis and Witman, with the goods, was 
burned out. 

Norwegian creek and the bucket system became inade- 
quate, even when a house was burned on the Landing and the 
canal was resorted to, and a fire company was formed. It was 
known as the " Rough and Readies." The Hydraulian or 
" Drollies " organized about the same time and the Humane, 
Good Intent and Young America followed. 

In 1832, a destructive fire occurred at Port Carbon and 
the Hydraulian Co., of Pottsville, responded. In 1833, the 
two-story frame brewery of D. G. Yuengling, on Mahantongo 
Street, took fire and burned to the ground. In 1835, a fire broke 
out and consumed a double frame building, on west Norwegian 
street, next the George W. Cumming residence, when the 
tenants lost everything even their clothing. Their lives barely 
being saved. In 1849 the stabie, horse and carriage of G. W. 
Cumming were burned. The building was in the same locality. 



©It! Sdjuplkill ffalES. 183 



In 1837 the apothecary store of Win. T. Epting (uncle 
of the wife of President Judge of the Schuylkill County 
Courts, O. P. Bechtel) took fire and was destroyed with all its 
contents. The fire was caused through the carelessness of a boy 
who held a lighted candle in his hand while filling a bottle with 
ether. Morris Brothers lost heavily in this fire. 

In 1838 the steam grist mill belonging to Clemens and 
Parvin was partially destroyed, and in 1846 four wooden dwell- 
ings belonging to the same firm, on George Street, were de- 
stroyed. They were occupied by Isaac Higley, John L. Mennig, 
Nicholas Madara and Jacob Olewine. A woman living 
in one of these houses became so terrified she was temporarily 
insane and fled from the building without her babe which she 
left in the burning house. It v/as found by a neighbor in a 
room next the roof, laughing and crowing at the sparks that 
fell from the roof that caved in shortly afterward. 



STORY OF CENTRE STREET FIRE 



One of the most destructive fires was that in the old 
Arcade, Centre Street, east side, between ITorwegian and Mar- 
ket. Henry Matter, deceased, who was one of the chief suf- 
ferers said: 

" My store was one of the first and best shoe stores in 
Pottsville. I am a shoe-maker by trade and made fine boots 
and ladies' shoes. For a custom made ladies' gaiter and shoe 
in those days we received as high as nine dollars a pair, and 



184 ©Iti Sdjuglktll CaUs. 



fine custom-made boots brought from twelve to eighteen dollars 
a pair. Of course there were lower grades. Machine made 
shoes have destroyed this branch of the business. 

" I had several hands in my employ and our store was 
stocked with our own and other manufacturers' goods. We had 
an excellent trade when the big fire wiped me out entirely, I 
having had no insurance on my stock. 

" There was no system about fighting fires then, and even 
the members of the fire department lost their heads. A great 
crowd collected and everybody lent a hand to save our goods. 
Shoes were carried to places of safety (i) that were never seen 
afterward. Stoves and feather beds were carefully carried out 
and looking glasses and wash bowls were thrown out of the 
windows; what was not destroyed by fire or stolen w^as so dam- 
aged as to be useless. Wm. Leib a well-known politician, uncle 
of Capt. Frank Leib, of Harrisburg, an officer in the 48th regi- 
ment, in the Civil War, lived in this block." 



OLD HAND ENGINE 



Other disastrous fires were those on east ISi^orwegian, corner 
of Centre, in the Johns property, occupied chiefly by saloons. 
The fire [N^. E. corner of Coal and east !Nor\vegian, and the 
great fire September 10, 1848, when the block on the east side 
of Centre, between E. Market and E. Arch was burned out. 
In which Glenn and Stine, Daniel Aurand, Abraham Miessie, 
Patrick Curry, Patrick Fogarty, Solomon Shoener, John Kai- 



©Iti Sc^uglkill STales. 185 



bach, Joseph Weaver, Oliver Roads, Charles Moll and Charles 
Ivopitzsch, were the principal sufferers, although many other 
business men were heavy losers. 

It was in 1846 that the Good Intent Fire Company was 
organized. Some of the citizens deemed the means for fight- 
ing fire inadequate, and Benjamin Haywood, Esq., drew up a 
paper to be circulated for the formation of a new and addi- 
tional fire company, and it found many signers among the 
young men at the shops and about town. A ball was held in 
December of that year to raise funds for the purchase of an 
engine. The first parade given by the company was April 19, 
1847, when the company with the ISTational Light Infantry 
turned out in honor of Generals Taylor, Winfield Scott, and 
Col. Wynkoop. 

That old hand engine! Every middle-aged man and 
woman in Pottsville remembers it. How the boys and girls and 
everybody else, congregated around Garfield Square and the old 
Market House, where exhibitions were given as to the height 
the streams could be thrown. Eighty feet were claimed. There 
were eighty members in the company. The engine had four 
immense handles and was manned by twelve men on each 
side, six above and six below, twenty-four in all, and how they 
did pump. Wlien the first relay were tired they were relieved 
by another set. 

It was this muscular exhibition, one side u]} and the other 
side down, that led the boys to form the Young America Fire 
Company, which was taken under the protection and instruc- 
tion of the Ilydraulian Conqiany, John P. Powers, Captain. 



186 ®ltJ SctuglktU ErUz. 



DESTRUCTIVE FLOODS 



In October, 1831, a disastrous freshet occurred along the 
Schuylkill. The river arose to a great height. Travel by 
wagon was impeded and the mail was carried on foot over the 
mountains and on horseback over the flooded roads. The 
Schuylkill ISTavigation dam and coal wharves in this vicinity 
were badly injured, and boats and dwelling houses were carried 
away. 

In Januarj, 1841, another destructive flood occurred. Coal 
Street, Pottsville, was entirely cut off from the rest of the town 
and many properties along the river, canal and Norwegian 
Creek were niined or badly injured. The houses on Furnace 
Island were surrounded with water and the families of some 
were carried to higher ground. Fifty yards of the embank- 
ment of the canal was swept away, carrying wharves, chutes, 
bridges and boat houses mth it. The old turnpike bridge was 
carried away as was also the towpath bridge. Ruin and de- 
struction followed along in the wake of the freshet down the 
valley. A sick man was rescued with the greatest difficulty 
from the lock-house at the first dam. 



TUMBLING RUN DAM BREAKS 



Tumbling Run Dam was threatened in the fr6shet of 1841, 
but it was not until 1851 that it succumbed to the flood, the 
water making a passage inside the wing wall of the water-way 



(©llJ Scbuslkill STaleg. 187 



and working larger until the greater part of the embankment 
gave way, and ruin and destruction followed in the wake of 
the great flood. An eye-witness of the breaking of Tumbling 
Run Dam says: 

" When word was conveyed to Pottsville, by a man on 
horse-back, that the dam was about to break, many repaired to 
the spot over the mountain, and I was among the number. The 
hillside was filled with people. It was a great sight. 

Many of the poorer people, and the working-class, built 
their little homes in this ravine and along the low lands near 
the Mt. Carbon l)ridge. Their homes, everything was swept 
away. Cows, pigs, chickens, the little cabins, stables, pig pens 
all were swept down stream. The bridge over the Schuylkill 
and canal went with the flood. 

The railroad at Mt. Carbon was filled with people watch- 
ing the flood. One man was seen swimming with the current 
with a pig in his arms. A rope was thrown him and he was 
rescued. 

A Pottsville man, whose wife and year-old baby were visit- 
ing a sister who lived on the Schuylkill Haven Flats, when he 
heard of the threatened disaster procured a horse and rode 
down the pike at break-neck speed. The flood was there before 
him, however, and he found the house surrounded with water. 

He rescued the inmates one by one, baby and all, with the 
horse and assisted in conveying others to a place of safety. 
Several narrow escapes were made from drowning all along the 
pathway of the flood by people who were trying to save their 
effects. A Mrs. Meek and " Mom " Pilliard, who afterward 
kept the Seven Stars hotel, were among those who lived on the 
flats at Schuvlkill Haven." 



188 ®l^ Scfjuglkill (lalcs. 



MILITARY HISTORY 



In a work of this nature much that is relevant to, and 
forms part of the history of the region, must necessarily be 
omitted. The facts narrated and the sketches drawn are nearly 
all included in the 3'ears from the first settlement of the county 
to a period anterior to the breaking out of the Civil War. 

Schuylkill County was highly honored through its illus- 
trious sons and the part they took in the Mexican War. There 
is a halo of glory surrounding the military history of this 
County and the part taken in the great struggle for the pres- 
ervation of our great and glorious Union, that has never been 
questioned. Its claims for recognition as a County, filled with 
noble and self-sacrificing men and women, who offered their 
all in the dark days of the rebellion, are second to no similar 
district in the State. 

Every Schuylkill Countian, at home and abroad, is proud 
of the military history of this County. The record, however^ 
is one of such magnitude that it would be impossible to intro- 
duce even a gist of it in this volume, and beyond a casual refer- 
ence to it the writer leaves it with the hope that the local 
historian of the future will do justice to its rich and already 
ripened field. 



©Iti Scfjiiglkill ^Talcs. 189 



FIRST MILITARY COMPANIES 



The ^^ational Light Infantry, now Company H., Eighth 
Kegiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, is the oldest military organ- 
ization in Pennsylvania. It was formed March 1st, 1832. The 
names of Captains Baird, Dean, Schoenfelter, Bland, Hon, James 
H. Campbell and Captain Frank Pott occur among its list of 
commanders. The latter took command at the close of the 
Mexican War. Its list of lieutenants includes the names of 
James Beatty, E. Joy Ridgway, Wm. Pollock, Hon, Robert M. 
Palmer, Henry L. Cake, David P. Brown, James Russel, 
Thomas Wren and Robert Colburn, 

The Independent Blues were organized in 1841, and were 
commanded by Capt. James N^agle, afterward Gen. Wagle. 
Thomas Johnson was a lieutenant. The great ambition of the 
young company was to make a showing beside their older 
rivals, the Light Infantry. They had scanty funds with which 
to equip themselves and their first uniform consisted of 
blue Kentucky jean trowsers and coat and a comical looking 
cap. 

On July 4, 1843, the company was reorganized and re- 
christened the Washington Artillerists. At that time the com- 
pany was presented with a beautiful silk flag made by the ladies 
of Pottsville. The Artillerists were equipped with handsome 
uniforms and had flint lock muskets from the State arsenal. 
They met in an armory located over Nicholas Kemp and Muth's 
carpenter shop, IST. E. corner of Sixth and Market streets. 

The call for troops for the Mexican War was limited. Tlie 
Washington Artillerists were the first to answer the summons 



190 ©Iti Scbuglhill Calcg. 



excluding the Light Infantry, but several members of the latter 
joined the Artillerists and served through that war. When the 
troops returned, the honor gained by the Artillerists over- 
shadowed that of the Infantry. It took the combined efforts 
of Col. Henry L. Cake and Capt. Edmund McDonald (uncle of 
Captain E. D. Smith) to keep the company together to do good 
work later on. 

Eighteen members of the Washington Artillerists voted to 
go to the Mexican War. Of this number two afterward backed 
out and two deserted at New Orleans. This left fourteen 
members, which with four men from the Light Infantry brought 
up the original number. This small squad was supplemented 
by others along the route and a good-sized company was raised 
before they reached Washington. The following was the roster 
of the Artillerists : 

Capt. James Nagle, Lieutenant Simon Nagle, Lieutenant 
Franklin P. Kaercher, Sergeants Wm. ITagle, August Boyer, 
Peter Douty, Edward Kaercher, Corporals Washington Garrett 
and Edward Massoh, and Daniel Nagle, Benjamin Smith, Owen 
Thomas, Peuben Samm and Nelson Berger. National Light 
Infantry: Robert Welsh, Jacob Sharp, Valentine K. Mills and 
Barney Barr. 

The Artillerists are now Company F. of the Fourth Regi- 
ment, N. G. P. Volunteers. 



©lb 5^d)uslktll EbXzq. 191 



JUDGE D. C. HENNING 



Former Judge D. C. Henning, president of the Schuylkill 
County Historical Society, says: 

" I heard the late Washington Garrett narrate a story on 
one occasion when I was present at a meeting of Gowen Post, 
in G. A. E. Hall. 'Wash' Garrett, as everybody called him, 
was a good soldier in the Mexican War and also in the Civil 
War, serving, I believe, his full three years' term in the War 
of the Rebellion. 

"Mr. Garrett was asked to tell something about his experi- 
ence in the Mexican War. Pie arose and said: 'I am no 
story teller or speech-maker, but this I can say. There was 
never any lagging behind in marching in the Mexican War. 
The Greasers were a treacherous lot. They made war on the 
sly and any man who fell behind could expect to be " done " 
by them. 

" 'In the Civil War a man could fall out, even in the 
enemy's country, and catch up again with his command. There 
were not many Johnnie Rebs who hunted the men in blue on 
the quiet. But in the Mexican War the fighting was not open 
or governed by tactics.' " 



REMINISCENT OF THE WOMEN OF 
POTTSVILLE 



The following reminiscences by the author appeared in the 
Pottsville " Daily Republican," J. H. Zerbey, publisher, 



192 ©Itj Srf)imlkfU STalrs. 



April 18th, 1900, when a special military copy in honor of the 
First Defenders was brought out. 

'' Something reminiscent of the departure of the first troops 
for the seat of war and their return. In vain do I cudgel my 
brains for a mental picture of the event. What would a mere 
slip of a girl then recollect through all these years ? Brushing 
aside the cobwebs of time that obstruct the mental vision, a kal- 
eidescopic picture of a parade on Washington's birthday flashes 
over the camera of long forgotten memories. A real soldiers' pa- 
rade, with martial music and I^icholas Rehr's band. The Wash- 
ington Artillerists in light blue trousers with red stripes with 
dark blue swallow tail coats and a profusion of gold lace. The 
Light Infantry in a cadet grey with black and gold facings and 
black felt hats with large white cocks' plumes. The Artillerists 
bad bear skin hats like those the drum majors today affect. The 
Washington Yaegers had dark green and brown uniforms and 
bandmen's hats, witli a dark green tuft or pompon in front. 
A hunter's costume, it was said, as was worn in Germany. The 
Continentals, the impression they left on the mind is most dis- 
tinct, with their pale buff knee breeches, leather leggings, buff 
vests and blue swallow tail coats covered with gold lace and 
three cornered hats. They were the admiration of all the girls 
and boys and were looked upon as veritable George Washing- 
tons in re-production. They marched through the town with a 
grace and precision that would be the envy of the militia boys 
of to-day, forming at intervals into hollow squares to fire a 
volley of blank cartridges in celebration of the day to the 
terror of the small children on the streets. This, possibly, was 
February 2 2d, 1861. The next recollection is wdien our father, 
who always read aloud evenings from his daily papers, the 



©Itj Sci^uglkill En\t&. 193 

"Public Ledger" and the "Evening Bulletin," (a custom he 
maintained during the entire war) with great impressiveness 
delivered, the President's proclamation and the call for 
75,000 volunteers to suppress the " insurrectionary combina- 
tions." The children were awed by the solemnity of his man- 
ner, but did not understand the situation. They tried to sup- 
plement their knowledge by studying the pictures of " Harper's 
Weekly." The illustrations of the firing upon Forts Sumter 
and Moultrie are still indelibly stamped upon the writer's brain 
together with others from the same pictorials in the years that 
followed, that pictured the blood and carnage of the battlefield 
and the encounters between the " Blue and the Grey." The 
departure of the first volunteers and their re"tum, all is a blank. 
Possibly we were not allowed to wander about on the streets 
in those exciting times and in the crowds that gathered to bid the 
troops " God speed." Local historians tell of the day beiiig cold, 
raw, and disagreeable and that the people flocked by the 
thousands from all parts of the County to witness their depart- 
ure. The roofs of the houses about the depots were black with 
people and the ladies lined every available window along the 
route waving their handkerchiefs to the brave boys. All 
through the war this deep interest in the soldier boys was main- 
tained by the women and girls of the town. On April 23d, 
a flag made by the Misses Bannan of Cloud Home, was placed 
in the hand of the iron statue of Henry Clay on top of the 
monument of that name. A multitude of people gathered to 
witness the ceremonies and patriotic resolutions were passed. 
Twenty-one ladies signed a communication at this time in which 
t hey tendered to the Hon. Simon Cameron, Secretary of "War, 
13 



194 ©It Sc]b«sl^i^I '^aks. 



their services as a nurse corps. His response to Miss Amanda 
Sillyman and Mrs. Jas. H. Campbell was highly complimentary 
to their loyalty and patriotism. A sewing society was organized, 
and up to the following June 800 havelocks, 135 bands, 90 
towels and 150 needle cases were sent to the troops from Schuyl- 
kill County. The ladies in other towns in the County organized 
for work with good results. In those times no gala day was 
complete without the erection of stands for the speakers. 



WHEN THE TROOPS RETURNED 



The ladies' deft fingers made wreaths and garlands to decor- 
ate the stand, market house and along the route. Bouquets of 
flowers were presented as they marched over the short line of 
parade, halting in front of the stand near the market house 
where they were welcomed home by John Bannan, Benjamin 
Haywood and other speakers. Inside of the market house a 
dinner had been prepared for the troops in which Mrs, Charle- 
magne Tower was interested and Mrs. Geo. C. Wynkoop had 
charge assisted by a corps of ladies, old and young, some of them 
the wives and sweethearts of the boys who came marching home 
again. 

On the return of the Tower guards, Mrs. Tower had pre- 
pared for them a collation at the Tower residence. Mrs. Tower 
all through the rebellion gave largely of her means and time 
to tlie soldiers' cause. Many soldiers' families in town received 
substantial aid from her private purse during the absence of 



©It) Scfjuglkill (lales. 195 

their support in the army. During the encampment of the 
96th Regiment on Lawton's Hill the ladies' sewing society pre- 
sented each man with a needle book and Testament, and before 
the regiment left, Miss Allen's pupils, a private school for young 
ladies, sent them a library of 200 volumes. Miss Amanda 
Sillyman of the postoffice, with the co-operation of other ladies, 
manufactured a large flag which was sent to the 48th Regi- 
ment at Fort Hatteras, N. C. Miss Sillyman, who went south 
to nurse her brother, Thomas Sillyman, was the first woman 
granted permission at Petersburg to enter the lines after the 
battle. Gen. McClellan giving her a pass and granting her an 
escort. It is a matter of regret that there is so little data of 
the work performed by the noble women of our town. Many 
of the ladies interested have long since died or removed to 
other places, and those still living recollect very little that they 
can impart for publication. Of those that took an active part 
in the work of patriotism were the Misses Bannan, Silliman, 
McCool, Carpenter, Sillyman, Ilartz, Haywood, Mrs. S. C. Colt, 
Mrs. C. Tower, Mrs. C. Little, Mrs. G. Wynkoop, Mrs. A. 
Cochran, Mrs. James Campbell, Mrs. J. P. Bertram, Mrs. 
Meyer Strouse and many others Avhose names are not recorded, 
but the recollection of their deeds still live fresh in the mem- 
ories of those who remain. Mrs. Emma B. Bohannon and Miss 
Christie Miessie had charge of the presentation of a stand of 
colors that were presented to the Forty-Eighth Regiment on 
their return home. The scrolls contained the names of the 
battles participated in. Misses Clara E.Lessig, Matilda P.Russel 
and ]\raggie Boyle representing tlie ladies of Pottsville pre- 
sented a stand of colors to the 96th on their return. On the re- 



196 ©It) Scljuglkill STalcs. 



turn of the 129tli Eegiment the ladies had a coUatiou prepared 
for them in the Market House. On Thanksgiving Day of 1863 
the ladies of Pottsville under Mrs. Martha Shearer served in 
the same place a Thanksgiving dinner to the troops stationed on 
Lawton's Hill and in the west end to preserve the peace and 
prevent a threatened riot during the enforcement of the draft. 
Soldiers aid societies under the superintendence of patriotic 
ladies were organized throughout the County and thousands of 
dollars worth of goods were sent to their brave compatriots on 
the field and in the hospitals. After the work of the 



SANITARY AND CHRISTIAN COMMISSIONS 



was inaugurated they were used as a medium for the dis- 
tribution of gifts to our soldier boys and others. Mrs. C. 
Tower was largely interested in the work of the Sanitary 
Commission and with the assistance of other ladies large sup- 
plies were forwarded. The ladies of the First Presbyterian 
church worked for the cause. The Ladies' Aid of Trinity 
Episcopal church was organized with Mrs. Andrew E-ussel, 
Misses Sarah and Amanda Silliman, Mrs. D. J. Ridgway, Mrs. 
A. Henderson, Mrs. J. C. Hughes, Mrs. Michael Bright, Miss 
Amelia Pott and others as members. 68 boxes of goods were 
sent the commission, the result of the work of the above 
ladies private contributions. The M. E. Church also organized. 
Mss Rachel Bartholomew, the Misses Taylor, Evans, Sparks, 
Amelia Haywood and others were largely interested and seven 



(©lU Scf)uglkill 3Eal£0. 197 



boxes of stores, the work of one year and valued at $500 were 
forwarded the commission. In the great Fair of the Sanitary 
Commission in Philadelphia in Jmie, 1864, practically the same 
ladies were interested, although the contributions were from 
all sources and the organization throughout the County was 
complete and independent of the work accomplished in Potts- 
ville. Miss Amanda Silliman w^as the chairman of the com- 
mittee in the ladies department and in addition to those men- 
tioned Mrs. Wallace Wolff, Mrs. John E"oble, Miss Parvin and 
Miss AVolff took an active part, and Mrs. Benjamin Bannan 
was chairman of the whole. The business men of the County 
contributed to the Sanitary Commission and Fair, the Christian 
Commission, for the relief of soldiers' families and miscellaneous 
contributions to Schuylkill county soldiers and others during 
the three or more years of the war showed that the enormous 
sum of $92,138.08 was contributed to the cause from the 
people of this county merely for philanthropical purposes. This 
did not include the aid given soldiers' families, many of Avhom 
Avere taken care of privately by the localities in which they 
lived, nor the money contributed toward filling the quota. But 
the work of the girls and boys during that time and the 16 boxes 
of supplies sent to the Commission by the pupils of the Public 
School deserve some recognition and must not be forgotten. 
Large quantities of lint were forwarded for the staunching of 
wounds. The scholars were requested to bring old linen, which 
was unraveled by the thread or scraped to make the coveted 
article. Girls and boys left their play to pick lint for the sol- 
diers. Our school, a sub-Grammar in a building of two rooms 
on the site of the present Centre street Grammar school, had the 



198 ©It ScJinylkill (Hairs. 



distinction of filling one of these boxes. The grammar school 
below of the Misses McCool did likewise. We worked for sev- 
eral weeks for the box at home and between school house hours 
on hemming towels, making needle books, havelocks and band- 
ages and the lint. On several rare occasions, our teacher, 
Miss Fanny Couch, a 'Yankee school marm,' from the green 
hills of Vermont, and one of the strictest disciplinarians Potts- 
ville's public schools ever knew, unbent enough to allow an 
hour's work for the box before the close of school hours, dur- 
ing which we sang patriotic songs. Then the box, with what 
interest we surveyed it. It was no 'measly' little box either, 
but a huge, square solid box. Dried fruits of all kinds 
were requested to fill it, cornstarch, crackers and farinaceous 
foods, together with cured meats. Bologna was forbidden, it 
would spoil, and glasses did not pack well ; the solid glass pickle 
bottles, however, were sent. There was a quantity of dried beef 
in the whole pieces and tongues and tongues. Well do I re- 
member with what feelings of pride I carried a huge farmer's 
summer sausage of the thick stove pipe variety and a contribu- 
tion of money to help defray the freight expenses. Then the 
conjectures as to the safety of that box. Geographies were 
taken out and the route studied which it would take till it 
reached Hatteras, IST. C, and no one felt safe until a letter 
of acknowledgment was received, which was read aloud in the 
school. Eeading matter was contributed for the hospitals in 
some of the schools, several of them clubbing together to fill 
boxes at intervals. These are but few of the incidents of 
those stirring times, many of which must go down in the un- 
written historv of the annals of time with the unnumbered 



(©It) Sctugl^ni QTaks. 199 



deeds of valor of the brave defenders of our country of which 
history has no record. All honor to the memory of the patriotic 
"women of Schuylkill County whose unselfish devotion and gen- 
erosity saved many precious lives and inspired with courage and 
zeal the brave soldiers in the field." 



NOT A FOOT WASHER 



Bob was the despair and delight of little Susan. They 
were brother and sister, and only two out of the little Peterpin 
brood of nine, over the youngest of which Susan exercised a 
housewifely and motherly care; and to whom the mother rel- 
egated much of the supervision of the children that she might 
the better attend to what she considered other and more impor- 
tant duties. 

Susan was a real little motherling, and it was amusing to 
see the care she took of the brood when they went out or were 
playing about. A watchful and interested neighbor related 
(Susan was small for her age and delicate) how upon one occa- 
sion a runaway horse came down the street full tear. She could 
not get her charges away, and taking her short skirts in both 
hands spread them out to their utmost, like a danseuse, and 
bidding them be quiet and stand close behind her she stood 
pale and trembling with dilated eyes watching the beast until 
he galloped harmlessly by and the danger was past. 

Susan had her o"wn ideas about cleanliness, and her rules 
were iron-clad about how the unruly six must appear before they 



200 ®1^ Scliitglkill STales. 



could have their meals, go to school or to bed. There were many 
incipient rebellions over the enforcement of the laws about 
clean ears, well brushed teeth, and combed hair, not to mention 
their baths, but Susan had all the phlegmatic firmness of her 
Pennsylvania German ancestry to fall back on during such 
occasions and usually came off conqueror. 

The boys ran barefoot during the hot summer months 
and when tliey went to bed they must all first wash their feet. 
Bob hated water and to slop his pedal extremities in the foot 
bath when he was tired and sleepy was almost more than he 
could endure. Coming home one night after a busy day play- 
ing around the foundry, for he had a taste for mechanics, he 
was more than usually black. He did penance, however, by 
washing his face and hands and then carefully washed off the 
tops of his feet, leaving the soles black and dirty but dry. 

Susan detected the imposition at once and the following 
conversation ensued : 

"Oh! Bob, why didn't you wash the soles of your feet? 
You must go back and wash them over again. You will make 
the bed clothes all dirty." 

" Dirty! Huh! How? You don't stand up in bed, do you? " 
said Bob ! 



COLORED WOMAN BURIED IN BABER 
CEMETERY 



It is not generally known that a colored woman lies buried 
in what was, in the 'fifties, called Mt. Laurel Cemetery, but 



O^Iti Sdjuglt^ill Caleg. 201 

such is the case. Burd Patterson, Esq., early coal operator and 
capitalist, imported into his family from the State of Virginia 
a very likely and comely yoimg colored woman to act as upper 
servant and nurse. She proved a faithful and efficient servitor, 
trusted and highly respected by her master and mistress, and 
beloved generally by the family. The cold winters, however, 
of the North proved too much for her rather frail constitution 
and tuberculosis set in, from the effects of which she died 
after about a year's illness, during which she was tenderly 
cared for by the family. After her death the Rector of the 
Episcopal Church read the burial service over her at the family 
residence. The remains were privately buried in the Mt. Laurel 
Cemetery, at the north-east end of the enclosure. A plain 
wooden head-board with the inscription, Phyllis, aged 38, still 
marked the spot a year or two ago and the record may be seen 
on the Trinity Parish register. 



THE PRESBYTERIAN CHILL 



It was one winter when an Evangelist was holding forth in 
Pottsville, with a series of Union Evangelistic meetings. The 
attendance nightly was large and the gatherings among the 
church people very enthusiastic. 

At a meeting in the First Presbyterian Church, close on 
to a thousand persons were present and it became necessary to 
hold an overflow meeting in the basement of the church. 



202 ©Iti Scf)uslfeill CTaks. 



A prominent business man of town having been engaged 
at work rather late, entered the overflow meeting, which was 
filled with members of other denominations, among them the 
Baptist, of which he was one. 

The "P, B. M." had a cold, and the room was cool and 
dranghty; bnt the gathering bubbled over with religious fervor. 
On his return home, his bronchial tubes closed up much to his 
wife's alarm, who, fearing pneumonia, hastily summoned the 
family physician, a testy old chap and a Presbyterian, too, 
by the way, and withal something of a wag. 

The Doctor sounded the P. B. M.'s lungs, carefully ex- 
amined him and ordered the usual remedies, which were at 
once applied. 

" 1^0, there is no pneumonia there," said the Doctor. 

" But a Baptist has no business in a revival outside of his 
own church. He just caught the Presbyterian chill. That's 
all!" 



BEFORE THE WAR 



It was in the summer of 1856 that the great Union Gospel 
Tent stretched its flapping sides and peaked dome, surmounted 
by an U. S. flag, on the site of what is now the depot of one of 
the main railways entering Pottsville. It held 3000 people 
and was considered a monster for its size, and was crowded 
nightly. The evangelists, Long and Schultz, were zealous for 



©ItJ Scf)itglktn ^rIc&. 203 

the cause, and the old town never experienced such a revival of 
reli^on before or since. Members of the different churches 
rallied to the support of the Tabernacle and there was a regular 
rattling of the dry bones in Israel everywhere. 

The Tent remained six weeks and many were the sinners 
that forsook the evil, of their ways; some of whom remained 
staunch to the cause espoused for the remainder of their lives, 
and were as bright and shining lights plucked from the burning. 
All things, however, must have an end, and the Tabernacle was 
removed to Korristown to fill a similar engagement. 

It was decided by some of the firmest supporters of the 
movement to continue the Gospel meetings, at least weekly, 
and a Union prayer meeting was formed among them to 
meet Sunday afternoons and thus not interfere with any of 
the regular church services. The gathering met in the little 
church on Second Street, abandoned by its congregation for 
a newer and larger one farther northwest; and on the site of 
which now stands the large Fire Department House of the 
Good Intent Company, 

Lawyer Peasely and Mrs. Cuff were among the most regu- 
lar attendants at the Gospel Tent meetings and were foremost 
subsequently among those in organizing the Union meetings. 
The Lawyer was a fine old-Country German gentleman, dig- 
nified in bearing, immaculate in dress, and one of the best 
read men in town. 

Mrs. Cuff was an honest woman and very earnest in her 
religious zeal and convictions. Her husband had been dead for 
some years and she in common with her daughters eked out 
a somewhat precarious existence as decayed gentlewomen bereft 
of their only legitimate support must do. ^Mrs. Cuff was not an 



204 ®lti ^diuglkill STalfS. 



educated woman, but the townspeople said, "' she was extra- 
ordinarily gifted in prayer " and just to hear her petitions for 
the uplifting of the good of the town and the overthrow of sin 
was considered more of an inspiration than the sermons of a 
preacher; and no one doubted her sincerity, either, for hers was 
a profession that would wash and remain fast colors. 

Lawyer Peasely had lost the companion of his joys and 
sorrows just prior to the arrival of the Tabernacle. He had 
been heard to remark at the grave to his little daughter, Mary, 
who clung to his arm sobbing as if her heart would break: 
"Take courage, my child, take courage!" and although ap- 
parently genuinely overcome, tried hard himself to follow this 
sage advice. At the devotional meetings he would pour out his 
soul in prayer and perhaps Mrs. Cuff w^ould follow with one of 
her fervent petitions, and thus it was not strange that a soul 
affinity sprang up between the two; and it was not long be- 
fore it was rumored about that Lawyer Peasely had promised to 
marry Mrs. Cuff in the Spring, when a year had rolled around. 

The news reached his daughters and they summoned home 
their brothers, who were engaged in business in Xew York, 
and together the family tackled the situation. The old blue 
blood of their ancestors was aroused; it must not, dare not be. 
It was a delicate matter, but the old gentleman was approached 
by his sons and the engagement with Mrs. Cuff w^as broken off. 
His attention was directed to another source which it was in- 
timated would be more agreable to the family, if marry he 
must, and which he subsequently did, and lived happily long 
past the allotted three score years and ten, with the object of 
his children's choice, confirming the wisdom of their selection. 

The next Sunday came and with it the Union prayer 



©Iti Sd^uglfeiU STaka. 205 



meeting; people had gotten wind of the affair and the attend- 
ance was large. Something might happen, they said, and they 
were not disappointed. 

Lawyer Peasely was in his accustomed place. lie arose 
at the proper time with his golden-headed cane clasped be- 
tween his hands, made a few remarks and offered prayer. 

He had scarcely seated himself when Mrs. Cnif jumped 
up with the evident intention of doing likewise, but her emo- 
tions overcame her, and with uplifted hand and head erect, 
in a voice that reverberated through the little building, she 
cried out in the shrillest of tones. 

" Oh, Lord ! Oh, Lord ! How I hate a hypocrite, I hate a 
hypocrite ! ugh ! " 

Poor woman. She sank to her seat with tears and in 
sobs; unable to utter another word. The feeling was tense 
and you could have heard a pin drop, but a better sermon was 
never preached anywhere. 



STICKETY JIMMY AND ELLEN 



Consternation reigned amouff the Peterpin nine when it 
was told them that Ellen was about to marry Stickety Jimmy. 
Susan cried, and Bob said, '^ he wished somebody would steal 
Jimmy's stick-foot, so he could not go to church, hopping 
up the hill all the way and when the priest was ready ' Old 
Stick-foot' would not be there;" and here he darkly hinted 



206 ©l^ <Sr|}U2lktll nrales. 



that lie might be that somebody if he could only get hold of it 
after Jimmy had gone to bed, for Ellen had said v/hen interro- 
gated that, " he always imstrapped the wooden leg at night" 
''And get taken to jail," said the sobbing Susan. 

Ellen was the maid of all w^ork in the home of the nine 
and they had never had a girl like her before. She Avas a 
new importation from the Sunny Green Isle, and coming over 

the ocean with friends destined for P , she made her advent 

in the family soon after her arrival. Ellen was as handsome 
as the girl that " sat in the low-backed car." Tall with a milk 
Avhite skin, blue-grey eyes, pearly teeth, rosy cheeks with 
dimples, and bands upon bands of chestnut hair which she wore 
coiled round and round on her shapely head. 

She Avas as strong as any man and could lift a full barrel 
of flour, which two of the noisy clan together could not do, 
and which fact gave her an authority over the boys, when in 
her charge, which she otherwise could never have commanded. 
They told their chums that she could lift the huge iron bucket 
the crane brought up from the dirt bank at the coal washery 
and even carry off a whole freight car on her back, and many 
were the walks in the vicinity of the railways, she was inveigle.! 
into, that they might see her perform the feat, which of course 
she never did. 

Story telling was her forte. " Come, Ellen, tell us a story," 
Bob would say. " One of your fairies." What remarkable 
stories they were; of the Banshees and little people, the fairy 
queen the dragons and the monsters of Tipperary Downs. 
When the boys were particularly bad, she told them of the 
headless giants that walked about the outside of the house 
and peered in through the Avindows. The blind prince who^ 



©IlJ Sc^uglkill Cales. 207 



marked down their good deeds and the dragon who could 
change them into a pig or a goat. If any of the bolder ones 
ventured to say, " I don't believe that, Ellen, that is a lie." 
She would defend herself with something like this: 

"A lie is it ? Shure what is a lie ? Me lyin' is given me 
to plaze me. If I lie against me frind, 'tis a mortal sin, but a 
lie to plaze meself is a gift from God, sint from Heaven for 
me plasure." 

The kitchen clock needed cleaning and ran down every 
day or two and refused to respond long to Bob's frequent 
windings. " It's the Divil in it," said Ellen. " I've heerd of 
it before. He sthops the clocks to hinder people from doin' 
their work on time, and 'yer father bein' that particular wid 
bavin' his dinner right on noon, but I'll get him out." 

She took the poker and gave three vigorous raps on the 
back of the clock saying with each rap : " Come out, ye Divil, 
come out." Whether or not the dust and grime fell from the 
wheels with such vigorous treatment is not known, but the 
clock went steadily after. 

" Never pint your gun at me," she said to Bob who had an 
old disabled musket with which he was allowed to drill, but from 
which the lock and chambers were gone. " I've knowed guns 
like that to go off afore whether they're loaded or not. They 
always do in the old counthry. The Divil is in a gun when 
you pint it." Wise Ellen ; and she was to be married and leave 
them. 

Stickety Jimmy was a morose looking Irishman. Coarse 
featured, unkempt, with thick black hair and round under-iieek 
chin whiskers and was not liked by any one. His face was red, 
his temper bad, and he a hard drinker. He had worked in the 



208 ®l^ Sdiuglkill Saks. 



silver mines near Vera Cruz, where he lost a leg and wore a 
wooden substitute, from which fact he gained the sobriquet 

by which he was called. lie came East to P , where some 

friends he had known, bought a horse and wagon for him and 
he made a fair living at hauling coal, or at least could have 
made it had he let " the craythur " alone. But he came from 
Tipperary and that was his sole recommendation in Ellen's eyes. 

The marriage was not a good one, and Ellen was soon in- 
stalled again at the family home doing day's work at cleaning, 
washing and general housework. At night it was rumored 
Jimmy beat her until she gave him her hard earnings to spend 
for whisky. Ellen said little, but her proud boastfulness 
was gone and her spirit broken. Little Jamesy came soon 
after, and he died from suffocation it was said, though it was 
never proven, the drunken father rolled on him in the bed 
while he slept and Ellen was at the washtub. 

She appeared again at her washtub and a little later was 
at work with a huge hole in her head. Doctor Berluchy had 
shaved away the hair around it and dressed the wound with 
huge strips of court plaster, and the children wondered if the 
pi'etty brown locks would ever grow again. When asked what 
caused it, she said: 

" I was just sphlittin' a bit av kindlin' wood and a piece 
av it flew up and sthruck me on the head." 

But word went around that Ellen was at last attempting 
to hold up her end, that Stickety Jimmy was getting as good as 
he gave. The neighbors, however, objected to these nightly 
brawls, and fearing Ellen might be injured or killed, when 
matters appeared to be reaching a climax they interfered. True 
to her Irish love of fair play and the traditions of the wielders 



©Ill Sd^uglkt'll STaleg. 209 



of the shillalahs at Donnybrook Fair, Ellen helped Jimmy, and 
together they turned on the neighbors and soon routed her well 
wishers. 

It was too bad. Something must be done and they ap- 
pealed to the Parish Priest, who appeared on the scene the 
next evening when matters were about at their worst. In 

thundering tones good Father G berated the brutal Jimmy, 

who with wooden leg in hand as a weapon was thrashing the 
luckless Ellen with it whenever he could get in a whack, and 
she in turn defended herself with the poker. Jimmy fled 
through the back window using the leg as a cane until he got up 
the adjacent hillside a sufficient distance to readjust it. 

Ellen retained her presence of mind and strove to appear 
as if nothing had occurred. She courtesied up and down, 
again and again as she did when a girl on the country roadside 
in " ould " Ireland when the carriage of the curate passed by, 
wiped off a chair with her apron, asked the reverend to sit 
down, inquired about his health and deprecated it that he had 
come out for such a " thrifle," he might take " cowld " again. 

The good man could not be severe with her but told her 
what a disgrace their conduct was, how they annoyed their 
neighbors, and asked her "if they both wanted to lose their 
souls? " and finally said: 

" It is a shame Ellen for you both to behave so, and you, 
too, that ought to know so much better. Cannot you and 
Jimmy live together without all this quarreling? " 

" Not wid any pleasure or injyment, your honor," said 
Ellen. 

Whether Jinuny was tired of married life or whether he 

was genuinely scared at the admonitions of Father G was 

14 



210 <!^I^ Scf)iislfeill STalcs. 

never known. He was never seen in town afterward. Ellen 
told the nine, she guessed, " the Divil had come for him, or 
else the Bogy-man had taken him down in 'wan of thim' big 
air-holes (mine cave ins) on Guinea hill to torment the bogies 
wid him." Some years thereafter, however, a Schuylkill 
County man returning from Tucson said he saw " Stickety 
Jim " driving a six mule supply team over the desert, for one 
of the Arizona silver mines. 

Ellen lived until she was well up in the eighties, working 
as long as she was able, when the charitable people of the 
town and her old friends relieved her from the necessity of 
going " over the hills to the poorhouse " of which she had so 
wholesome a dread. She was buried according to her own in- 
structions. Her funeral was large, and one of which she would 
have been very proud, could she have seen it, and perhaps she 
did. 



PART V 

EARLY CHURCHES 



PART V 



HISTORY OF EARLY CHURCHES 



THEIR ORIGIN AND WHEREABOUTS 




CHUYLKILL COUNTY, having been a part of Berks, 
its early history is, of course, contemporaneous. Lo- 
cality, however, fixes certain historical events that oc- 
curred east or west of the Blue Mountains, the divid- 
ing line, as early as the French and Indian War. 

The "Old Eed Church," near Orwigsburg, Schuylkill 
County, was built in 1754. It was burned in the Indian 
massacre in 1755 and has since been re-built four different 
times. Jacob's Church, two miles west of Pinegrove, was or- 
ganized in 1780. St. John's Church, near Freidensburg, and 
Hetzels, on the Summer Berg, followed soon after. The early 
settlers in the vicinity of Pottsville attended either the Freidens- 
burg Church or the ISTew Jerusalem organization, below the 
County Home, which was built later. 

The first church here was not within the Borough limits, 
but stood in a field lying north of the road leading to the Joyce 

213 



214 ©Iti Sdjiiglfeill Calcs. 



nursery, near the home of Col. Hyde (Mill Creek Avenue). 
It was bnilt as a place of worship for the lumbermen who oper- 
ated saw-mills along the Schuylkill, as far north as N"ew Phila- 
delphia, and for the use of the few settlers in the vicinity of 
Pottsville. It depended entirely upon the services of such itin- 
erant Lutheran and Reformed preachers as came this way, for 
the ministration of the Gospel, the baptism of children and the 
burial services for the dead. Some of these funeral sermons, 
being preached months after their subjects were interred. The 
rude stones that marked the graves of some of these early 
pioneers were still to be seen on the spot after the traces of the 
first log church near Pottsville were altogether obliterated. 

Mrs. Amelia P. Schall, daughter of the late Benjamin 
Pott, and granddaughter of John Pott, the founder of Potts- 
ville, kindly furnished the author Avith the following informa- 
tion on the subject: 

"My mother, who was a daughter of Martin Dreibelbeis, 
who came to where Schuylkill Haven now stands, in 1775, to 
make a home for himself and family, told me of this first 
church. It was known as Keim's Kirche. The Rev. George 
Minnich, who was one of the first pastors of Jacob's Church, 
near Pinegrove, the second church built in the county — -not Wm. 
Minnich, who afterward officiated in Pottsville — with other 
ministers that traveled about, sometimes came there to preach. 

"On such occasions, her parents and their family, with 
others of the early settlers, would come up here to attend the 
meetings. The women, many of them, rode on horseback and 
whole families came in wagons. The only other church then 
was the Freidensburg Kirche on the other side of Schuylkill 
Haven, which the early settlers attended in the same way. Rev. 




Old Red Church 



©Ill Sctuslkt'll Cales. 215 



George Minnich at that time also supplying that and the 
Jacob's charge at Pinegrove. 

"My cousin, Miss Tamson Strauch, sister of Henry and 
Daniel Strauch, the latter the first white boy born on Mahan- 
tongo Street, all now deceased, recollected hearing her mother, 
who was Magdalena Pott, daughter of John Pott, relate the 
same circumstance. Some years before my mother's death, 
which occurred in 1875, we drove to the spot in the rear of the 
Pottsville water basin, where Keim's Kirche stood, but found 
only the landmarks to indicate the site of the ancient church. 

"There is no record of when my grandfather, John Pott, 
gave the land on the corner of Xorth Centre and Race Streets 
for the laying out of a cemetery and the building of the log 
school house in which the first church services in Pottsville were 
held. At least none that I am aware of." 



THE LOG SCHOOL HOUSE 



AVheix it is taken into consideration that in 1824 so little 
progress had been made that there were only five houses on the 
site of Pottsville, which was known as "John Pott's at the Coal 
Mine," it will not be a matter of astonishment that the building 
of the first churches began almost simultaneously, about 1828, 
with the incorporation of the town and that three of them were 
completed very nearly at the same period in the town's history. 

The great body of the early Methodist preachers were 



216 ©Iti ^djuglkill Cales. 



plain, uneducated men, who came direct from the masses of the 
people. They were in touch not only with their views, ambi- 
tions and aspirations but with their inner everyday lives. They 
were a set of self-sacrificing men, who could consistently preach 
of that future state of happiness as the only thing worth striving 
for in this world. The salary consideration did not enter into 
their life-work, nor was their religion a mere profession of moral 
ethics or their teachings confined to the theoretical dogmas of 
church doctrines. They taught the people their need of God 
to lean upon, during the hardships they were undergoing and 
His power to sustain them through the privations of their hardy 
and lean lives. 

One of these, Fathei: Boehm, an itinerant preacher at a 
salary of $64 a year, traveled from Philadelphia to Fort Au- 
gusta on horseback to look after the religious interests of the 
people and he is believed to have held the first religious service 
here, long before the incorporation of the town. It was held in 
the forge of the Greenwood furnace, built in 1806. There was 
no other place to hold it and it was this circumstance that led 
John Pott to donate the ground, on I*^orth Centre Street, for the 
log school house, to be used for school and church purposes. 
The few, sparse settlers united, had a log-rolling bee and built 
the first church which, however, being non-sectarian, was never 
consecrated, and, as previously stated, was used in turn by the 
Episcopalians, Methodists and Presbyterians, to hold services 
in and here these first churches were incorporated. 

The first consecrated church in Pottsville, was the St. Pat- 
rick's Roman Catholic, a small frame building, hastily thrown 
together for use in 1827, until the handsome church building 
then underway was completed. 



Bib ^c^u^lMl CalES. 217 

On September 3cl, 1827, a meeting was held in the log 
school house and an Episcopal congregation was organized. The 
first vestrymen were : Abraham Pott, Francis B. Nichols, Sam- 
nel J. Potts, Joseph White, ]\Iordecai Lewis, E. Chichester, M. 
D., George Shoemaker, Poseby J. Hann and John Curry. John 
Pott gave the lot upon which the present church stands. Pev. 
Xorman ]^ash, a young missionary, officiated at the laying of 
the corner stone, and the new church was built and completed 
1829-30. The St. Patrick's P. C. Church, which was started 
about the same time was completed a short time after. 

At this date, 1827, Pottsville had forged ahead from a 
village of five houses to one of a hundred and sixty houses and a 
population of about eight hundred. 

John Comly, an old-time Quaker from Philadelphia, held 
a Friends' meeting in 1828 at the York Farm colliery store, 
which stood on the site of the C. M. Atkins' mansion, South 
Centre Street. In 1830 Friend Comly again visited Pottsville, 
and held services, and the outcome of these meetings resulted in 
the building of a Friends' meeting house, on Sharp mountain, 
near the corner of J^inth Street and Howard Avenue. The 
building was of stone, whitewashed a bluish slate color. The 
basement story was used for a Friends' school. The building 
was completed in 1831. 

A Methodist Class had in the meantime been started by 
William Mills and wife, late from England, Andrew Mortimer, 
and Jonathan Wynn, who was the leader and exhorter. A 
church organization was effected in the log school house and the 
Eev. Joseph McCool was the first pastor installed. Mr. McCool 
disliked the M. E. itinerant system of moving about and sub- 
sequently, after a short pastorate at Allentown, accepted a call 



218 ©Iti Sctjuglfeill SDales. 



to the First Presbyterian church of Pottsville, for which he 
filled a very acceptable and useful pastorate for over thirty years. 
Simultaneously with the M. E. church organization, a new 
building, for the worship of Almighty God, was begun on the 
site of the old building on Second Street and completed early in 
the '30's. 

The Episcopal, Roman Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian 
and Friends meeting house, were the first churches of Potts- 
ville and were completed in the order named. The other denom- 
inations, comprising fourteen churches, followed in the early 
subsequent years. 



FIRST RELIGIOUS SERVICE 



Of the first religious services held in Pottsville, Miss 
Emma Pott, daughter of Benjamin Pott and granddaughter of 
John Pott, relates the following : 

"It was about 1870, I do not recollect the exact date, but it 
was during the lifetime of the late Benjamin Haywood, that 
Father Boehm, then over 90 years of age, visited Pottsville and 
was the guest of Mr. Haywood and his wife, at their home, now 
the Y. M. C. A. building. Mr. and Mrs. Hay^vood invited Miss 
Rebecca Schall, formerly of Orwigsburg, who was a guest of 
ours at the time, and I, to meet him. We took tea with the 
family and had a most enjoyable visit. 

"Father Boehm spoke of his first trip through this region. 
He came here with Bishop Asbury, of the Methodist Episcopal 



®lti Sdjualkill ^alcs. 219 

Cliurch, to establish a Class. This they did along the route 
from Philadelphia to Sunbury, as the aged man said, "wherever 
two or three praying souls could be found to meet together in 
ITis name." There was no place to hold this first religious ser- 
vice and my grandfather offered the forge of the old Greenwood 
furnace. It was swept out and put in order and seats were im- 
provised and such people as were here at the time attended with 
their families. 

"Father Boehm, at this time, did not recollect any one in 
Pottsville as being here at that date except the Pott and Morti- 
mer families. He was very bright and entertained us with 
stories of his experiences in the olden times and sang for us 
several of the old Methodist hymns that were used in the early 
days and great favorites with the people." 



HYMN BOOKS IN CLOTHES BASKET 



Miss Clarissa McCool says : 

"My father, the Eev. Joseph McCool, was in his early days, 
an itinerant Methodist Episcopal clergyman. His first work 
was largely of a missionary character. He traveled through 
parts of the State on horseback preaching to the people and en- 
deavoring to organize, such as desired it, into classes, that were 
the nucleus from which the organizations of the M. E. Churcli 
in these places were afterward formed. 

"My father was a circuit rider and the first preacher, after 
the M. E. Church in Pottsville was oi-ganized, to jivcaeh for the 



220 ©Iti ^djuolfeill Ealts. 

congregation in the old log school bouse, corner of Center and 
Race Streets. He came to Pottsville, with my mother, from 
Lancaster in 1830. During this year, on his own responsibility, 
he purchased from Col. George Shoemaker, the lot on Second 
Street upon which the old ^Methodist Episcopal Church stands 
and on it was built and completed, in the same year, the first 
M. E. Church. My father's and my mother's families were of 
both the Methodist and Presbyterian faiths. 

"I remember to have heard my father say that the hymn 
books, Bibles and other books used for worship were kept at our 
home, and prior to worship and after it were carried to and fro 
h\ the members of the church in a clothes basket."' 



A WILD TURKEY STORY 



In response to an interrogation made by the author to Dr. 
Edward Heiser, veterinary surgeon, he said : 

''Do I know any old settlers' stories? Weill if you w^ould 
have asked me about thirty or thirty-five years ago, I could have 
related a good many. 

"I kept hotel then down the turnpike and drove up to 
Pottsville, frequently, stopping at the Penna. TIall, kept then by 
William Peed. 

''The office was a great place for the prominent men and old 
settlers of Pottsville to congregate and there w^ere many good 
stories SAvapped by such men as Larry Whitney, IMajor Wether- 



©llj Scl^UDlktll STales. 221 

ill, L. P. Brooks, Judge Walker, Benjamin Pott, Major Huber, 
Oliver Roads, James Beatty and others. 

On one occasion, Charles Cheny told the following- story. 

"My father, Charles Cheny, one of the first settlers, was 
a very religious man. He belonged to the first Class organizerl 
by the Methodists, under the leadership of Jonathan Wynn 
and William Mills. The class met for worship at the houses 
of the members, and meetings were frequently held at our home. 

"I remember one time, it was on a Sunday, and Bishop 
Asbury, of Philadelphia, was to preach. Our family was up 
early and everything about the house was placed in readiness 
and in perfect order for the church service, which was a great 
event in those days. I was a small boy and rather in the way, 
and after being dressed in my best clothes slipped oft' and be- 
took myself to a point on Sharp Mountain overlooking the town 
where I discovered a wild turkey pen and in it, two large, wild 
turkeys. 

"Delighted with the find and thinking only of what a fine 
meal they would make for the Bishop and the other company 
we were entertaining, I secured them and hurried home. The 
services were going on when I returned, but I hid the birds in 
a small building near the house and waited to tell mv father 
at the close. 

"It was some time before I could attract his attention and 
have him accompany me to the stable where the turkeys were. 
I related the story in high glee and expected him to commend 
me for having secured this addition to our larder, when to my 
astonishment, he said: 

"My son! Have I raised you onlv to become a thief and 
a Sabbath breaker? Have all mv relioious instructions to you 



222 ©11" Scfiiiglkill STaks. 



been in vain? I will attend to you first, my son. Then yon. 
take those birds to the top of the mountain and free them. 
They are God's wild creatures and do not deserve to be 
trapped." 

"Then followed the most tremendous whacking I ever got 
with a convenient barrel stave, for my father was not one who 
believed in sparing the rod and spoiling the child; and I sor- 
rowfully left for Sharp Mountain, where I did as he bid me, 
and set the turkeys free." 

"Why you infernal, young scoundrel!" said old Jeremiah 
Reed, the first w^hite child born in Pottsville, (both men were 
nearing their four-score mark) , who was one of the number that 
listened to the relation of the narrative, "was that you that 
robbed our turkey pen? Col. Shoemaker and I built that 
turkey pen. Turkeys were scarce and we saw by the marks 
that someone had robbed us. Why, your father never gave you 
half what you deserved." 



ST. PATRICK'S R. C. CHURCH 



St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church was the first build- 
ing in Pottsville erected and consecrated exclusively for religi- 
ous purposes. It was a small frame structure built at a cost 
of less than $1,000, on a lot near the corner of Fourth and 
Mahantongo Streets and the present magnificent structure. 
The ground was donated by John Pott. Worship was held here 



(©II) Sdjuglftill Ealte. 223 

1827-1828, until the first permanent church was completed in 
1830. 

The first rectors were: Rev. J. Fitzpatrick, Rev. Edw. 
McCarthy, Rev. Hugh Lane, Rev. Dr. Wainwright, Rev. Edw. 
Maginnis and Rev. Joseph O'Keefe. 



ROMAN CATHOLIC CLERGYMAN GOOD 
FINANCIER 



The Roman Catholic population was constantly increasing 
and the first St. Patrick's Church completed about 1830, was 
soon found to be too small to accommodate the members of the 
growing parish. It was the only Catholic church in the county, 
and people came from the entire Schuylkill Valley to attend 
Mass here. The church would be crowded almost to siiffocation 
and large numbers of the faithful, who could not find accom- 
modations inside, knelt on the pavement outside, during the 
celebration of the Masses. 

The church was enlarged several times, but it was not until 
other churches were built up the Valley, that relief was afforded 
St. Patrick's. 

Abram Miessie, a prominent early resident of town, re- 
lated the following story. Mr. Miessie was a shoemaker and 
built and o\\Tied the upper two of the block of brick houses, 
east side of Centre Street, between Market and Callowhill 
Streets. He was one of a Class that formed for the organiza- 
tion of the first Evangelical Church, of town, in the 'Forties. 



224 ©ItJ Sdjuglkill Caks. 



"I was an early resident and remember when the Roman 
Catholic Church, at 'Neyv Philadelphia, was built. I was in- 
terested in an early coal operation and went up there frequently. 
The priest was a fine man and very energetic. He did all he 
could to clear off the debt and pay for the building of the 
church, but the people were poor and the struggle a hard one. 

"At last it was all raised except a certain sum for which 
he plead for in vain. One Sunday he locked the church door 
and placed the key in his pocket and told the assembled con- 
gregation that no one could go out until he had paid the sum 
of ten cents. Those that had no money could borrow from their 
friends. Many paid at once but others could not and those 
that had the cash were finally stripped of all they had by the 
borrowers. Twenty cents was still lacking when the bank 
treasuries were exhausted, when there was a tap on the window, 
and a hand was extended from outside with a silver quarter 
between the forefingers and the door was unlocked. 

"A man outside who had been listening, becoming tired of 
waiting for his wife to prepare the dinner, furnished the quar- 
ter and the debt was cancelled." 



OTHER EARLY CHURCHES 



Trinity Lutheran Church was organized in 1834. Ser- 
vices by Lutheran pastors, from lower Schuylkill and upper 



©ItJ Scfjuglkill (ITales. 225 

Ijcrks, wfrc hold in Koim's Kirche and in tlie old loi>' school- 
house on Centre Street, in the earliest era of Pottsville and this 
locality. The first pastors of Trinity Church were the Rev. 
Wm. Minnig, who took charge 1834. The first church was 
dedicated October, 1837. The English Lntheran Church was 
organized out of this parent church in 1847. In 1850, a split 
occurred in Trinity Church and a number of inenibers with- 
drew and organized Zions Church. The latter worshipped in 
a small frame church on the site of the Good Intent Fire House. 
The pastors of Zions Church were : Rev. C. F. ]^anz. Rev. F. 
Walz, Rev. Julius Ehrhart. In 18G4, under the latter, the two 
congregations reunited and Mr. Ehrhardt was retained as 
pastor of the congregation. During the long interim from 
1834 to 1859, Rev. Wm. ^Minnig remained the pastor of 
Emanuel's Church (Trinity) except for a short period after 
the trouble, when he retired but was recalled. 

Rev. C. F. Lampe succeeded him. He married Miss Sarah 
Kohler, of Pottsville. Rev. S. A. llolman, of the English 
Lutheran Church also uuirried one of his congregation. Miss 
Fanny Hazen. 

The frame church on Second Street was known as "Billy" 
Leib's church, he having subsequently purchased it with the 
adjoining pro])erty, now occupied as a residence by the l>ee 
brothers. 

The remaining pastors of Trinity Lutheran (^hurch, which 
was rebuilt in 1868, were: Rev. Wm. Ho])])(', Rev. G. A. 
Hinterleitner and Rev. J. H. Umbenhen. 

The First Reformed Church was erected in 1860. Prior 
to this time, the people of the Reformed faith were supplied 
with services, according to their creed, by lhe Rev. John Felix 
15 



226 ®Iti ^djiiglfeill 2rak0. 



and Rev. H. II, Knobel, who preached occasionally in Keim's 
Kirche and the old log school honse. The Revs. Knoll, David 
Hassinger, C. T. Hoffman, and J. W. Hoffmeier supplied the 
Pottsville and other congregations of adjoining to^vns, from 
1836 to 1853. Others who came after were Revs. John Ganten- 
bein> I. E. Graeff, Samuel Miller, J. C. Bucher (father of Mrs. 
John R. Hoffman) Kurtz, C. Baum, A. S. Steckel. Trinity 
Reformed Church was an offshoot of this church. The latter 
congregation purchased Avhat was known as "Thompson's" 
Church, on Market below Fourth. This edifice was called the 
Associate Reformed and was known as the Scotch Covenanter's 
Church and was built and owned by Samuel C. Thompson. It 
was an independent Presbyterian or Congregational church. 
Its members were subsequently merged into the Second and 
First Presbyterian Churches. The Second Presbyterian 
Church, organized in 1857, for a time, under the pastorate of 
the Rev. Samuel Colt, a chaplain in the U. S. army, in the 
Civil War, held services in Thompson's Hall, the third story 
of the building corner of Second and Market Streets, now known 
as the Archbald building. The congregation also worshipped 
in Thompson's Church. They purchased their present church 
building, since handsomely remodelled and enlarged, from the 
trustees of the Second Methodist Episcopal Church, a congre- 
gation that flourished here for a brief period, in the early days. 
Dr. W. S. Plummer, Dr. G. W. Smiley and Dr. O. W. Law- 
son were renowned pastors of the Second Presbyterian Church, 
The First Presbyterian Church was organized in 1831. 
The Rev. Sylvanius Haight was the first pastor who served. 
Rev. J. A. Mines came next. He, in turn, was succeeded by 
the Rev. Jos. McCool. In 1832 a church was dedicated. It 



©Itj Scl)ii2lkill Ea\t&. 227 



was a small frame structure on the northwest corner of Third 
and Market Streets, built on ground rent to Jacob Eyre. In 
1838, the corner stone was laid for the white frame church, 
corner of Third and Mahantongo Streets, on the site of the pres- 
ent fine mountain stone structure which was built in 1872-75. 
The old church was completed in 1842. A delay was caused, 
owing to the opinion of some of the members that the founda- 
tion was insecure. The lot was purchased from John Biddle, 
the ground at one corner was undermined by the Charles Law- 
ton and Samuel Lewis coal operations. 

Some of the first members and attendants of the early 
church were the most influential and progressive citizens of 
the town; the Fosters, Solomon and Jesse; Oliver Dobson, 
David A. Smith, the Wrens, Stevenson, George Bright, Wm. 
Lerch, Wm. Pollock, the Thompsons and others but the church 
was not built and paid for without a struggle. Col. Robert LL 
Ramsey told many interesting stories of the early days of this 
church. 

Col. Ramsey was subsequently a Superintendent of the 
Sunday School. On one occasion he related that after the 
building had been completed a bell was considered necessary 
before the work was done. Everybody had given and given 
again and again what they thought was their due apportion- 
ment toward the church when the women of the church volun- 
teered to raise the money for the bell. His mother was an 
earnest worker and those were the days of genuine sacrifice. 
Mrs. Ramsey had contributed and worked for the bell but at 
last the amount still lacked two dollars and a half of being com- 
plete. Mrs. Ramsey made up the sum from money she had 
laid aside to buv a new winter bonnet and she wore her old 



228 ©l^ Scftuglkill Caks. 



bonnet another year. Col. Ramsey always spoke very feelingly 
of this and other incidents in his mother's history that told 
of her charitable and generous nature. 

The pastors that succeeded Rev. Joseph McCool were, Rev. 
Isaac Riley, Rev. Prentiss De Veuve, Rev. J. W. Schenek, Rev. 
Jacob Belville and Rev. John Huse Eastman. 



ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST CHURCH 



The German Catholic Church, now one of the largest con- 
gregations in Pottsville, with one of the handsomest and most 
imposing buildings, began with a very liumble and un])reteii- 
tious origin. In 1840, Rev. Hirslaus Steiubacher came to 
Pottsville from Reading, on horseback, once a month to celebrate 
mass for the German Catholics. In 1841, a lot was purchased, 
corner of Fourth Street and Howard Avenue, and the stone 
structure, now the Italian church, was erected. 

The Rev. Jos. Burg was the rector of the parish until his 
death, in 1849. Rev. Peter Carbon, Rev. Daniel Ovorholt/.;"r, 
Rev. Phillip Wigmeyer, Rev. Francis Newfeld and Rev. Fran- 
cis Wachter, succeeded Father Burg in the above order. Rev. 
Father Wachter built the present imposing structure, corner 
of Mahantongo and Tenth Streets. Then came Rev. Bernard X. 
Baumeister, from that date assistant rectors became necessary. 
In 1878, the present beloved and popular incumbent. Rev. Fr. 
F. \V. Longinus, took charge of the parish, the affairs of Avliich 



mti &c\)uia\M\ STalfS. 229 

he has so ably administered for twenty-eight years, during 
which many improvements have been accomplished by him 
through his energetic endeavors. 

The late Francis Alstatt, Adam Reith and others told many 
interesting stories of how the building of the first cdiurch was 
accomplished. The members met and cleared the lot of its 
timber and undergTowth, The foundation was dug through 
their assistance. There were some stone masons among the mem- 
bers and they contributed day's work or overtime toward the 
quarrying of the stone and the erection of the stone walls. Fer- 
dinand Boedefeld, Francis Ackerman, Peter Woll, Peter Ochs, 
Lawrence Fisher and Anthony Redelberger, were among the 
first members. 



OLD RECORDS DIFFICULT TO TRANSLATE 



In searching for the past history of the County, the records 
of the old churches are invaluable. Most of these records are 
in the possession of the churches of which they form part. 
Some, however, were retained by the early itinerant ministers 
who had charge of a number of churches and traveled from 
place to place. If the descendants of any such still have these 
records in their keeping, if they will — no matter how meagre 
the facts — restore them to the churches they represent or to 
the Schuylkill County Historical Society, they will assist 
materially in completing or adding to their histories and in 
furnishing the historical link. 



230 ©It SdjugHull (JTalcs. 



The State of Pennsylvania, at present, has experts at work 
translating these old church records, and it is expected that 
several years, at least, will see the publication, in the "Archives" 
of these records. The new set of Pennsylvania Archives, now 
in the hands of the State publisher and printers, and which will 
be out soon, contain much that will be valuable to those search- 
ing for their ancestral line, Revolutionary War heroes, etc. 

W. W. Brown, of Rock, a member of the numerous family 
of that name, who hold their annual reunions on the Brown 
ancestral acres near that place, and who is the caretaker of 
the records of the Summer-Berg church, the second oldest in 
this part of the country, says: "These old church records are 
very hard to read. Most of them are written half in English 
the other half in German. The paper is colored with age and 
the ink is so faded that it is almost impossible to make out the 
names. 

"I have gone through our book many times and always 
find names I have not found before. It may be that in time 
to come I may find the names you have inquired about?" 



PREACHED AGAINST VANITIES OF DRESS 



Parson M was one of the early and ablest ministers- 

Oi" Pottsville. He was a God-fearing man, an earnest and zeal- 
ous preacher and endeavored to carry into practice precepts 
upon which he dwelt in the pulpit. 



(©Ill ScfjugUull EalzQ. 231 

His wife was a fine-looking woman and one of the most 
stylishly dressed of that period, in town. She wore her silks and 
laces with a grace peculiarly her own, and it must be admitted 
they were becoming to her. 

She had been heard to say that she thought that, next to 
the consolations of religion, the satisfaction of being well- 
dressed came first; and that, indeed, if she had to choose be- 
tween the two, she would prefer dress even before the former. 

The parson argued and expostulated against this love of 

dress, in private, but Madame M , otherwise an exemplary 

wife and obedient to his wishes in other respects, pursued the 
calm and even tenor of her own way in this. 

One Sunday the Parson preached a sermon on humility 
and bore down hard upon the vanities of dress. 

He was very much moved, and at the conclusion he leaned 
over the high board of the pulpit, and, with streaming eyes, said 
to his congregation: 

''My dear children! You may think when I preach thus 
against the love of dress and the sin of it, that I ought to look at 
home. I want to tell you, dear friends, that I do look ; and I 
look until my heart aches." 



THE OLD TOWN HALL 



The old Town Hall, on North Centre Street, was built in 
1839 by the Town Hall Association. Charles Gillingham was 



232 ©Iti Scfjuglkill eTales. 



the contractor. It was sold iiiider a mortgage in 1840 to Messrs. 
Bray and Bancroft, who engaged Adam Eiler to complete it. 
It cost $34,000. In 1865 it was jmrchased by George Slater 
and is now owned l)y his son, Harry P. Slater. This building 
was burnt by fire, March 10, 1876, the fire originating in 
Mahlon Nichol's store room. It was rebuilt at once and has 
since been known as the Centennial Hall. 

Prior to the Civil War and until the building of Union 
Hall, it was the rendezvous for all the balls, fairs, asscml)lics, 
theatricals and other entertainments in Pottsville, and there 
were many of them, for this was always a good show town. 
Prof. Kemmerer and Prof. Alexander, singing masters from 
abroad, held singing schools here for the school children and at 
the close of the terms gave concerts by their pupils that were 
largely attended by the public. The original Sigiior Blitz came 
here periodically, and Prof. Stouch taught the boys and girls 
how to dance in old Town Hall. Prof. Alexander was the father 
of Prof. James Alexander, band-leader and all-around musician, 
of Wilkes-Barre. He boarded with the family of 'Squire Lewis 
Keeser, but subsequently brought his family here. 

It was hero that ye olden time Old Folks' Concert was held. 
The singers dressed like the dames and 'squires of colonial 
times. It was in old Town Hall that Artemus Ward (Charles 
F. Browne), who came here almost unannounced, deliv- 
ered his lecture to one man, John T. Shoener, District Attorney 
under Howell Fisher, and "Tom" sat it out and said he never 
enjoyed anything more. Here Francis B. Bannan, dressed 
as a clown at a masquerade ball, made his famous hand-spring 
and jumped over the head of digiiified John P. Hobart, six feet 



©It) Scl)uslfeiU Eales. 233 



tall, and then with another jn^np, leaped up and tnrned out the 
gas of the chandelier. 

Several resurrected invitations to these assemblies have the 
names of Francis B. Gowen, Matt Richards, Willis Hartz, 
Lewis C. Thompson, William Thompson, F. B. Bannan, Fran- 
cis Parvin and William Clemens engraved on them. Another, 
of the Celo Patrol social club, a hop, has the names, John Clay- 
ton, Benjamin Whitney, Frank Hazzard, Charles Vandusen, of 
Pottsville, C. I). Elliott and James Trexler, of Reading, and 
Ben Snyder. 



CHARLEMAGNE TOWER 



"Did I know Charlemagne Tower? Why, yes!" said veter- 
inary surgeon Dr. Ileiser, ''everybody about Pottsville knew 
him. He came here from Waterfordj i^. Y., where the family 
still maintains a country home, and was the largest owner of 
coal lands in the county, except P. W. Sheafer. 

"'Tower City was named after him, Ambassador Tower is 
bis son, he was named Charlemagne for his father. Mr. Tower 
was Provost Marshal for Schuylkill County, when the U. S. 
troops were stationed in Pottsville, during the Civil War, to en- 
force the draft. 

"The Tower children w^ere raised very sensibly. Great at- 
tention was paid to their education. They had a private tutor, 
Prof. H. A. Becker, who came here expressly from Germany 
for the purpose of instructing them. 



234 ©ItJ Sctiiglitill 9Ealf0. 



"Young Charlemagne went to military school afterward, 
then to college, and finally finished his education abroad at one 
of the German Universities. 

"One of the daughters married Richard Lee, dead now, 
another, Thomas Alexander Reilley, son of Judge Bernard P. 
Keilly, of town. The family live in Philadelphia. 

"Everybody in Pottsville liked the Tower family, and 
young 'Charlie' was generally beloved. He loves Pottsville, his 
birthplace, too. 

"An instance of his feeling for the old home-town occurred 
a short time ago, when Alex. Faust and party called up)on him in 
Berlin. He came forward at once and called 'Alec' by name, 
shook hands with him warmly, bade him sit beside him and then, 
he inquired about everybody — the odd characters about town 
as he remembered them thirty years ago, not forgetting to ask if 
'Ed. Saylor' and 'Wm. Tarr' were still living. 

"'No wonder Emperor William likes a man like that. A mil- 
lionaire and the son of a millionaire and one of the greatest 
official dignitaries representing the United States in a foreign 
country and yet not above remembering the humblest in the 
town of his birth. 

"Oh ! yes, I knew Charlemagne Tower and his son 'Charlie,' 
everybody in Pottsville in the 'Sixties' and the earlier part of 
the 'Seventies' knew them." 



[Note. — Charlemagne Tower was one of the most notable 
of Pottsville citizens. He made his fortune in Schuylkill 
County through the ownership and sale of coal lands, and re- 
tired a millionaire, removing to Philadelphia after his retire- 
ment, where he died.] 



®ltJ Sdjuglkill (Jalcs. 235 



SOCIAL AND LITERARY ADVANTAGES 



The social and literary advantages of Pottsville have ever 
been of the highest order. Dr. J. F. Powers, rector of Trinity 
Episcopal Church, strongly endorsed this statement in a clause 
•of his sermon on "Old Home AVeek," Sunday, September, 1906, 
when he said: 

"Clergymen, called as they are from time to time to min- 
ister to churches in widely separated localities, have an un- 
usual opportunity for comparing and discriminating between the 
people of these various communities — the tone of society — 
local peculiarities — social refinement and general culture. 
Tliis is the expression of one in regard to Pottsville (doubtless 
liimself) having served for three years a parish in Cambridge 
under the shadow of Harvard University; another for nine years 
in Maiden, dominated by the influence of Boston culture; still 
another for twelve years in the city of Philadelphia, a city never 
slow to assert its o^ni superiority, he came finally as rector 
to Trinity Church, Pottsville, to find a congregation in every 
way equal and in many ways superior in education, in refine- 
ment, in social culture and religious earnestness to any con- 
gregation he had ever served. And what he found true of the 
congregation, he found in a large degree true of the community 
of which it formed a part. 

"In an eminent degree the people of Pottsville are cosmo- 
politan. They are of the world. They know what they owe 
to it and what is due to them from it; with dignity they demand 
the one, and with promptness pay the other." 

Col. O. C. Bosbyshell, former superintendent of the U. 



236 ®lti ^cbuslf^ill STalcs. 



S. Mint at Philadelphia, says, ''The social life during the 'Fif- 
ties was of the very best. I never knew of a to-wn where the 
society was better. The people were hospitable, intellectual, 
generous and neighborly." 

Another in speaking of the early literary treats afforded 
the people adverted to the lecturers, Wendell Phillips, Henry 
Ward Beecher, De Witt Talmage, Artemns Ward, Schuyler 
Colfax, Paul Du Chaillu, Horace Greeley, John G. Saxe, Fred. 
Douglass, Charles Sumner, James G. Blaine, Petroleum V. 
Xasby and others who visited Pottsville. Josh Billings was 
advertised to lecture on milk. He had a huge goblet filled 
with the lacteal fluid to the brim on the stand in front of him, 
but he never said a word about it. 

Then there was the first debating society that met in 
Thompson's Hall, where Thomas R. Bannan, Francis B. Gowen, 
John T. Shoener, Howell Fisher, Mat Richards, James Ellis 
and others met and argued on the leading questions of the day. 

Private theatricals and Shakespearian readings were popu- 
lar. Mrs. G. AV. Farquhar, mother of Guy and Fergus Far- 
quhar, Esqs., was a great assistance in such matters. The family 
lived in a house on the site of the present Court House. 
It was erected by Archibald Ronaldson, a Scotchman and coal 
operator. Queer noises were heard in the night time and it 
was reported to be haunted. Mrs. Farquhar, who was a Von 
Schrader from Germany, said: 

"I do not mind the noises in the least. I do not believe 
in ghosts" and Mr. Farquhar purchased the house. It was 
afterwards discovered that the sounds came from the under- 
ground workings of the miners of the Pott & Bannan mine. 

They afterwards sold the house to the promoters of re- 



®lti Srijuglkill Caks. 237 

moving tbe Coiirt Ilouse from Orwigsburg to Pottsville, and 
the family removed to the Orchard, corner of Washington and 
Baber Streets, the residence now owned and occnpied by ^Lrs. 
Sarah Loeser Briscoe. The John Bannan family removed to 
their newly bnilt mansion, Cloud Home, in 1853 and also proved 
invaluable coadjutors to Pottsville society and were liberal en- 
tertainers. 



FORTISSIMO VS. PIANISSIMO 



Every lover of music has felt its soft and entrancing in- 
fluence when from some grand organ, perhaps, the tender and 
soothing strains awaken the intellect to the subtle and inspiring 
influence of a vague harmony, that breathes to the soul a memory 
of some undefined aspiration or ambition that has never been 
fulfilled. The thought grows through the skillful manipulations 
of the organist, as he presents his theme from pianissimo to for- 
tissimo and then wlien the emotion is at its height and mental 
musical pyrotechnics fill the brain and swell the soul, the imagi- 
nation descends from its empyrean heights and runs the gamut 
of descent to the normal again as the music subsides and finally 
dies out. 

The "Passing Regiment," too, illustrates the ditfereuco be- 
tween the contending forces of sound. The band with its muffled 
drum beats in the distance. As it draws nearer, the music be- 
comes plainer, until at last the sound swells to the volume of a 



238 ©Iti ^cf)U|jnuIl STalcs. 



tornado as the imaginary organization arrives in front of the 
house and with flying colors passes along down the street and 
is lost in the distance. 

More than one person has suffered embarrassment at an 
entertainment, or perhaps in church, by trusting too much to the 
"ff" (double forty or fortissimo) of the music; by talking aloud 
when suddenly the strains ceased or became just as soft as they 
were loud a moment, ago. 

At one of the early County Public School Institutes held 
in Pottsville, a young man accompanied by a lady attended one 
of the evening entertainments. 

The Pottsville Academy was crowded to overflowing and 
on the stage were seated the prominent instructors of the in- 
stitute, with the lecturer of the evening, the School Directors 
and others. 

Among the former was Deputy State Public School Super- 
intendent Henry Houck, at this Avriting a candidate on the 
Republican State ticket, for the coming election, iNTovember, 
1906, to the office of Secretary of Internal Affairs. 

There was a loud buzz of small talk among the teachers- 
and the orchestra was sawing away like mad, in a fortissimo 
passage, when the following occurred: 

The young w^oman who had been chatting to her escort, 
indicating Mr. Houck, said, "Who is that black-whiskered man 
with the skull cap on ?" 

"Deputy State Superintendent Houck!" yelled the Y. M. 

"Deputy State Superintendent Houck!" said a soft voice 
in response. But alas ! there was a crash, the music had ceased 
and quiet deep enough reigned to hear a pin drop. The audi- 
ence was breathless. The Deputy State Superintendent had 



©Itj Scl^uglfeill ^Taks. 239 



been called and in response he came forward to the edge of the 
platform and bowed his acknowledgments, awaiting the pleas- 
ure of the audience. There was no response but two very red- 
faced young people (the man is now a prominent Government 
oiEce-holder) shrunk into the corner of their seats and subsided 
for the evening. Both had learned a lesson on musical acoustics 
that lasted them a lifetime. 

* -X- * * * * 

On a later occasion Henry Ward Beecher had been engaged 
to lecture before the County Institute. It was a cold evening, 
the train was late and Mr. Beecher just arrived and proceeded 
directly to the Academy. Tired out and not very enthusiastic 
over his subject he proceeded in a somewhat desultory fashion 
to demonstrate to young people, men and women, "the import- 
ance of saving the half of their earnings, no matter how small, 
for a start in life," when Micljael Ryan, a one-armed school- 
teacher, of Shenandoah, in a loud voice, interrupted him with, 

"And live on bread and Avater ?" 

The effect was electrical, Mr. Beecher brightened and 
answered at once, 

" Yes, Sir, and less if necessary." Then followed one of 
the most brilliant lectures of which Mr. Beecher was capable. 
The silvery tongued orator had been awakened and a flood-tide 
of glittering generalities, specialties and facts were presented 
in a manner that was irrefutable and permitted of no contra- 
diction. 

Mr. Byan died a short time ago. That he had crossed 
swords with Henry Ward Beecher was his obituary. 



240 ®lti Sc^uglfetll STales. 



SUPERSTITIONS OF SCHUYLKILL COUNTY 



All peoples, lettered and unlettered, have their supersti- 
tions. The heterogeneous mass of inhabitants gathered into 
the two hundred thousand and over, ])0])ulation of Schuylkill 
County, seems to have centered and inculcated in its make-up 
the combined beliefs of the folk lore of all nations. 

It is not strange that the early stories which the writer 
has attempted to reproduce in these pages should have been 
believed in the early days, but that people should still exist in 
the county who believe in witches and witchcraft, seems almost 
incredible, and yet we read in this enlightened age, September, 
1906, of one, a farmer in the Mahanoy Valley, who accused a 
woman of bewitching his live stock. He paid her a liberal 
sum of money to withdraw her diabolical influence. 

For thirteen months horses, cows and swine perished on 
his land and he was unable to fathom the cause. He had 
pure water on the farms, clean stables and good fodder. Vet- 
erinary surgeons could not stop the spread of death. 

Whenever a witch died it was believed that her mantle 
descended to her daughter and she, it was believed, could cause 
her neighbor's baby convulsions, his cow to give bloody milk, 
or his horse to balk or die. Women mtches had the power 
to turn themselves into the form of a sow, cat or rat at their 
pleasure. Infants who died in a slow decline were supposed 
to be the peculiar objects of the vengeance of witches, and 
many were the queer remedies resorted to effect a cure. The 
''Lost Books of Moses," before referred to, and a book known 
as "The Long Hidden Friend" (Der Lang Verborgne Freimd), 



©Ill Sci)uslftiU ^Eales. 241 

by John George Holman, of Berks County, contain many 
curious remedies for the relief of all the ills that flesh is heir 
to, in man and l)east. Strange to say, these books are still in 
great demand. 



POW-OW-ING 



Pow-OAv-ing is still largely practiced about the mines. 
But when it is remembered that these healers of burns are 
practical nurses and experienced in the treatment and bandag- 
ing of the injured parts before they recite the charm or incan- 
tation the cures they effect are not so remarkable. In the 
'Seventies a woman lived at Minersville, named Mrs. Reed. Dr. 
Wm. Beach said of her that "She was one of the most skillful 
dressers of wounds." When a man was burned at the mines 
she could attend his case as well as any physician. It was 
this ability that cured or helped the man and not her pow-ow- 
ing to "draw out the fire." But you could not convince believ- 
ers in the occult of this. 

ErN'sipelas, a febrile or scorbutic disease, was very much 
more common in the early days than now and came, perhaps, 
from eating too much salt meat. Everybody had the erysip- 
elas then, like the appendicitis now, diseases, like the fashions, 
having their day. An old residenter, John Kimmel, who lived 
in a log house on the east side of the Presbyterian cemetery, 
of which he and his sons were in after years the sextons, was 
16 



242 ®ltJ Scbtiglitill (Jales. 



very successful in pow-o\v-ing erysipelas. The writer recollects 
having seen him treat an obstinate case that had defied the best 
efforts of a leading physician and he cured it (or it went away 
of itself) with a lighted stick which he held over the flaming 
parts until it went out, pronouncing certain words and making 
signs. Jacob Hoffman, of Orwigsburg, was also a noted pow- 
ow-er. Both claimed their work was done through prayer, and 
both effected many cures. 



L. C. THOMPSON 



L. C. Thompson, Esq., the popular hardware dealer, con- 
tributes the following reminiscence: 

"My father, Samuel Thompson, was one of the first set- 
tlers of Pottsville. He came here in 1828 from Juniata 
County. At about the same time Burd and George Patterson, 
also came. They were two of the most noted of the early 
pioneers of town and established coal and iron industries here 
of which you are, of course, familiar. 

"My father built the brick building, corner of Market and 
C-entre Streets, since occupied by my hardware business, where 
he established a general store, for the stores then kept every- 
thing. He was of Scotch-Irish parentage and was born in 1792. 
He was thirty-six years of age when he came to Pottsville, and 
was then already married. He died in 1852, at the age of 
sixty years. The children were: the late Colonel William 



©Ill Sdjiiylkill ilaleg. 243 

Thompson; myself, Lewis C. ; Emily, wife of Major E. C. Baird, 
deceased ; and Major Heber S. Thompson, Superintendent of 
the Girard Estate interests in Schuylkill County. We lived in the 
house, connected mth and over the store, until after my father's 
death, in 1852. I was born there in 1835, wlien the family 
home on j\Iai"ket Street, above Third, was built, and occupied by 
my mother and sister until their deaths. (The house is now 
owned by Dr. Gillars.) 

"My father owned five or six boats on the Schuylkill Canal 
for the shipment of coal. On the return trip they brought 
the goods for our store and carried other freight. One was 
known as the ^Old Post Boy,' another, 'The Battle Snake,' 
the names of the others I do not recollect. The farmers then 
bought rock plaster in large quantities for the fertilization of 
their lands. They ground it themselves. This practice has 
been done away with. Phosphate and other fertilizers have 
taken its place and rock plaster comes already ground. All this 
was during the stage coach days. 

"At that time John Morris, who was married to a sister 
of my mother, kept store on Bailroad Street, between Race 
and Arch Streets. Their family home was on the comer of 
Race and Coal Streets, opposite. He removed the store subse- 
quently to Centre Street, near the corner of Market, now occu- 
pied and owned by Mr. Rubinski. There were three Morris 
brothers in the mercantile business, Samuel, on North Centre, 
in the building now occupied by green grocer Ginther, and 
Richard Morris built the building known by his name, now 
occupied by the Dives, Pomroy and Stewart firm. 

"My father was a Presbyterian. Juniata and Mifflin Coun- 
ties were peopled with those of that faith. There were several 



244 ©It) SdjuglktU (Jalfs. 



others here of that church and they organized the Associate 
Reformed Presbyterian Church. My father gave the ground 
on the site of which Trinity Reformed Church now stands, and 
a church was built. That branch did not believe in instrumen- 
tal music in churches and they sang the psalms of David as 
hymns. After my father's death the congregation was merged 
into the other Presbyterian churches. 

"There were some fine people here, but it was not until 
about 1850 that the best social features were developed. The 
early days were largely occupied in the struggles incident to 
establishing new business ventures. The Patterson families 
did much toward promoting the social features. George Pat- 
terson lived on the corner of Seventh and Mahantongo, now 
Supt. John Wood's, of the Reading shops, home; James Pat- 
terson, on the corner of Eighth, and Burd Patterson's home 
occupied the entire square where I now live, on the opposite 
side of the street, between Eighth and Ninth. Miss Mary 
Patterson owned and lived in the handsome home now owned 
and occupied by Andrew Robertson, corner of Market and Sixth 
Streets. She was a maiden lady and sister of Burd and George 
Patterson. George H. Potts, who married a daughter of 
George Gumming, Esq., and sister of Mrs. George W. Snyder, 
afterward lived here. Mrs. Potts was in delicate health, when a 
severe thunder storm broke over the town. She died from the 
bursting of a bloodvessel, superinduced by the shock of a flash 
of lightning which struck nearby and during which storm the 
thunder and lightning were terrific. 

"George Gumming, Esq., father of the late Benjamin W. 
Gumming, and grandfather of Attorney B. W. Gumming, built 
a fine home on West Norwegian Street, between Third and 



©Itj Sd^uglkill Ealte, 245 



Fourth Streets, on the site of the present family home. He 
built here with the firm conviction that, owing to its being more 
level than Mahantongo, Norwegian would be the fine residence 
street of the town. 

"The farmers would come in to town in great numbers from 
Fishing Creek and the Mahantongo Valley prior to the holidays. 
They brought large quantities of beef and pork here, for most 
people did their own butchering then. It was a busy sight to 
see the long string of wagons on Centre Street. We had a 
long porch from the second story of our home on the Market 
Street side. On Saturdays and holidays, the town would get 
very rough. As children we would sometimes sit on this porch 
and watch the fighting going on below. 

"'Geist's Hotel, above, next to Hoover's store, was known 
as 'The Lamb.' On the S. W. corner of Second and west on 
Race Street stood the tavern of J^atty Mills, it was called 'The 
Trappe.' He was a great politician and during election times 
the place was crowded. J^atty Mills was a great character. 
He turned out a fine family, however. His son, Samuel, was 
educated at West Point. Samuel's son, Samuel, was an 
instructor at the same Government Institution. Another son, 
Paul Dencia Mills, married Miss Willing, of Philadelphia, one 
of the old historic families. Mrs. Lefevre Womelsdorf, mother 
of Aquilla and Oscar Womelsdorf, was a daughter of Natty 
Mills." 



PART VI 

INTERESTING LOCAL STORIES 



PART VI 



INTERESTING LOCAL STORIES 



THE UNDERGROUND RAILWAY STATION IN 
POTTSVILLE 



I 



N 1787 when the town of Columbia was layed out a 
majority of the settlers, Quakers from Bucks, Mont- 

gomery and Chester Counties settled there. The 

Quakers bore a decided testimony against the holding 
of human beings in slavery. 

Lots were given free to all the colored people in the vicinity. 
They formed a community of their ovm. and it was to be ex- 
pected that the colored people going that way should be har- 
bored by them. 

In 1804 General Thomas Boude, of Columbia, a revolu- 
tionary officer of renown, a member of the Legislature and who 
had represented Lancaster and Chester Counties in Congress 
two terms, purchased a young slave named Stephen Smith from 
a man named Cochrane, near Harrisburg. The slave's mother 
came to live at Gen. Boude's, when her former owner attempted 
to kidnap her. Gen. Boude liberated mother and son shortly 
afterward. 

249 



250 ®l^ Scljuglktll Calcs. 



Soon after a wealthy planter in Virginia liberated his 
slaves. There were 56 of them. They were brought to Columbia 
in wagons. The heirs endeavored to retain them, but after 
years of litigation the Virginia Legislature decreed them free. 
Sallio Bell, a Quaker of Virginia, emancipated about 100 slaves. 
They also went to Columbia. 

After this period slaves began escaping in large numbers 
and most of them sought refuge in Columbia. William Wright, 
(father of Benjamin Haywood's son-in-law, Wright) was an un- 
compromising hater of slavery. He had a thorough knowledge 
of the law and a strong nerve power. He assisted all fugitives 
who applied to him and, after disguising them, passed them on 
to another Friend six miles east of Lancaster, and thus the Un- 
derground Railway began. 

As the number of fugitive slaves increased pursuit was 
more frequent and the kidnapping of the human chattels by the 
owners and their agents made it imperative that a direct line 
to the Eastern States and Canada be layed out ; and it was but 
natural that the slaves should be conducted from bondage to 
freedom by those who believed in their emancipation, the 
Quakers. 

These earnest sympathizers were found in York, Lancaster, 
Chester and ]\Iontgomery counties. Phoenixville, Philadelphia, 
N^orristown, Reading and last but not least in Pottsville. While 
some of these stations were not the principal or dividing depots ; 
when the slaves arrived in great numbers they were divided and 
sent out in bunches or alone to the branch stations, of which 
Pottsville was the first north of Reading. 

There were two routes through Gettysburg and the stations 
close to Mason and Dixon's line were only ten miles apart. The 



®It) Sdjuglkill ^Ealcs. 251 

benevolent abolitionists divided the slaves; half went to Colum- 
bia the other half to Harrisburg. The majority however came 
through the southern route of Lancaster and Chester Counties. 
When they were in danger of apprehension by pursuers they 
were at once distributed to more remote points, from ISTorris- 
town, Phcenixville, Reading to Pottsville and on toward the east 
or Canada. 

The slaves, many of them came direct from the more south- 
ern slave States. They traveled by night alone and were guided 
solely by the iSTorth Star. Some of the women had no covering 
except a single garment made of sacking, many of the men were 
Avithout shoes or hats. They had to be secreted until they could 
be fed, washed and clothed and then were moved to the next 
Station. The great number of sick and injured were mainly 
cared for in Chester County. It is a notable fact that all or 
nearly all who assisted the slaves to freedom were members of 
the Society of Friends. The slaves were usually tracked to the 
dividing point and here all trace was lost. Some of the first 
pursuers stated in their bewilderment that there must be a i'ail- 
road underground from there. This remark led to the naming 
of the secret system, 



THE UNDERGROUND RAILWAY 



If the slave hunters were not in immediate pursuit the 
runawavs would remain for a while and work on the farms. 



252 ©Iti Sci}iiglkill (laks. 



The riot at Christiana occurred in this way. Three non-resist- 
ing Quakers who were harboring 38 of these miserable refugees 
were pursued by one Gorsuch, a shive holder from Maryland 
who with a posse of constables and about 20 whites attempted 
to capture them. Two men fired upon a colored woman, Avhich 
was the signal for all the colored people in the neighborhood to 
assemble to defend those of their race. Firing began and the 
slave holder was killed. The three slaves who caused the trouble 
were raided to Canada that night. 

Four lawsuits followed out of this affray. To refuse to 
assist in the arrest of fugitive slaves was considered under the 
act as "Treason" which means, in the language of the Consti- 
tution "levying war against the United States or in adhering to 
their enemies to give them aid and comfort." 

Theodore Cuyler in his famous speech for the defense said 
that this force, it w^as claimed, levied war against the United 
States," and another legal authority stated that, "in this riot 
at Christiana and in the death of Gorsuch and the wounding of 
others occurred the first blood shed in the great contest of the 
Civil War." 

Immediately after the riot the U. S. Government ordered 
a portion of the Marine Corps to be stationed at Christiana. 
The police scoured the county and arrested every person white 
or black who was suspected of being in the fight. ITanway and 
Lewis, the Quakers, who refused to assist the slaveholders in 
capturing their slaves were arrested for treason. They were con- 
fined in Moyamensing Prison 97 days and were then tried in 
the U. S. Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and 
found "Not Guilty." 



©ItJ Sc!)uslkill SDales. 253 



[N^orristown became a station in 1839 and it was after that, 
that refugees were sent to Reading and Pottsville. 

On the 18th of September, 1850, Congress passed the law 
kno-wn as the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Zachary Taylor, 
then President, would not have signed it. After his death, Mil- 
lard Fillmore appended his signature and it became a law. 

One of its ]>rovisions was that any person harboring a negro 
slave on his premises as a fugitive, was liable to a fine of $1,000 
for each such negro. 

Under this iniquitous law Thomas Garrett in a trial before 
Chief Justice Taney, U. S. Court sitting in J^ew Castle, Dela- 
ware, lost $8,000, all he had in the world. It is not to be won- 
dered at that 



FRIEND GILLINGHAM OF POTTSVILLE 



preserved a discreet silence in regard to the aid he was giving 
the runaways and that l^it few except those of the Society of 
Friends knew of his assistance and that his home was a station 
on the road to freedom. Friend Gillingham was not a rich man 
and the tax for even one of the slaves, $1,000, was more than 
he could have aflforded. 

Friend Samuel Gillingham lived in the brick residence 
northeast corner of Seventh and Mahantongo Streets which he 
built and o^vned, his son Charles built the brick house north- 
west corner of Eighth and Mahantongo Streets, afterwards 
bought and occupied by Frederick Patterson now the home of 
Mrs. C. K. Wingert. 



254 ©Iti Scl^uslktll ilTalcs. 



Wm. Mardis, of town, says: 

"I owned a farm at Gcnnantown but lived at Indian Run 
where friend Samuel Gillingham was interested in a saw mill. 
He had three sons, Charles, Samuel and William; and two 
daughters, Phoebe and Ann. 

'Triend Samuel Gillingham w^ent to Virginia where he 
engaged in the lumber and store business and where he died. 

"His son Charles, who was also known as Friend Gilling- 
ham, and the daughters never either of them married but lived 
in the home property until his death and the death of the last 
one of the aged ladies about 1865. They were tenderly cared 
for by two nephews, Samuel and Charles and a niece Sallie who 
afterward married Edward Paxson." 

Friend Samuel Gillingham is believed to have been a secret 
emissary of the Underground Railway System and that during 
his residence in Virginia he was active at the other end of the 
line in sending fugitive slaves I^orth, and that through his direc- 
tion they found their way to the old home, where his son Charles 
cared for them. 

On one occasion a party of six colored persons were sent to 
Pottsville from Reading. Dr. Smedley, of Lancaster, is the 
authority for the statement, that it became imperative that they 
be sent at once by rail to the farthest station. They came here 
disguised as Quakers, their black faces covered with veils their 
hands with gloves. In his description of them he nairrates that 
the youngest of the runaways, a little girl had a scoop bonnet 
on and as a concession to her youth there was a bunch of bright 
red roses pinned on it. They w^ere harbored by Friend Gilling- 
ham; 

John R. Hoffman, P. & R. Coal and Iron Company En- 



(®ltJ ^cfjuglkill Enltfi. 255 



gineer, who bought the Gillingham property and has handsomely 
improved it, invited the v^^riter to inspect the original part of 
the dwelling and described how it looked before being occupied 
by his family. 

The house was a plain two-story brick, with, two rooilis on 
the parlor floor, two large and one small bedroom on the second 
floor and an attic. In the basement there was a kitchen and 
dining room. In the front the space was divided into two parts, 
one for a cellar, the other presumably for a pantry. The latter 
is a good-sized room and was undoubtedly fitted up for the 
refugees, as it was known by the neighbors to contain a bed, 
chair, table and washstand, when women were of the party 
it is thought they slept in the attic. 



AGED RESIDENT PRESERVES SECRET 



Miss Elizabeth Whitney says : 

"I lived with my brother, Wm. Whitney (former President 
of the Miners Bank) in the house next the Gillinghams, on Ma- 
hantongo Street. Colored people were frequently seen about the 
Gillingham house. Sometimes they did chores for the family, 
emptying ashes, chopping wood, sweeping the yard as if they 
were hired for the day; but the most of them remained pretty 
close in hiding or within the yard which had a high board fence. 
Friend Charles Gillingham was then a gray-haired man. 

"Those of the neighbors who were aware of their presence 



256 ©Iti Scljuglkill Calcs. 



preserved a discreet silence, knowing well what it might mean 
to the Gillinghams if the matter was made public, for there were 
Southern slave-holding sympathizers even in Pottsville as well 
as elsewhere. 

"One morning I was at the window of our home and from 
the second story watched a large, black negro man in the ad- 
joining yard. He saw me and seemed to become very much 
frightened and repaired at once to the inside of the house. 

"In a few moments Phoebe Gillingham came over, her 
usual calm manner somewhat ruffled and she said to me : 

"Friend Elizabeth ! Thee saw something a few moments 
ago in our yard. Thee knows what it means. Thee will keep 
silent about it for our sakes, will thee not ? The man is being 
pursued and dreads capture." 

"I assured her it should be the same as if I had not seen 
anything and we never spoke of what transpired around their 
dwelling, either before or afterward. The black people came 
and went through the gate on Seventh Street or the rear gate at 
the foot of the yard. 

"I kept my promise, but Abraham Lincoln emancipated the 
slaves almost a half century ago and the principal actors in the 
Underground Railway Station in Pottsville and those that knew 
of it have long ago gone to their reward. I tell it now believing 
that it should form part of the history on record of Pottsville 
in its early days." 



©It Sdjuglkill EalzQ. 257 



THE EARLY STAGE COACHES 



There is no definite record of the year the first stage ran 
over the State road from Pliiladelphia to Sunbury. The Light- 
foot survey was made in 1759. It was the forerunner of the 
"Great Eoad" from the Falls of the Schuylkill to Fort Au- 
gusta, which was constructed in 1770. The road was built to 
command the Indian trade of the district included, which was 
already recognized as one of great wealth. It was not entirely 
completed until 1785, although opened in 1777, and was made 
to connect the Schuylkill with the Susquehanna river. Ellis 
Hughes, who lived at Catawissa and owned a saw mill at 
Schuylkill Haven, where the local branch started from, was 
one of the promoters, if not the instigator, of this part of the 
highway. Construction was commenced on the Centre turn- 
pike in 1808; it was completed in 1812 and with it doubtless 
came the first stage. 

It was not until 1828 that a daily mail began running be- 
tween Philadelphia and Pottsville. In 1830 tliree lines of 
stages between this place and the Quaker city were competing 
for the patronage. The passage took 18 hours. The lines were 
called the "Coleman," "Reside" and the "Clover" lines. One 
of these was owned and run by Michael Mortimer. 

William \V. Mortimer, Custodian of L'nion Hall, says : "Of 
the original Mortimer family there were three brothers; Wil- 
liam, Andrew and John ]\Iortimer. Andrew Mortimer, who 
was the father of Borough Treasurer Samuel ^lortimer and 
Nelson A. Mortimer, was postmaster in 1840. The postoffice 

was held in the building on Centre Street, afterward occupied 
17 



258 ®lti ^djuglfeill STaleg. 



as a store room by James Focht and now owned by Lieberman, 
the dry goods merchant. 

"William Mortimer, father of William Mortimer, whose 
sons are W. Horace, G. Wesley, Frank P. and Charles W., was 
my grandfather. His sons were William, G. W^ashington, Mor- 
gan, and Michael, my father. 

William Mortimer, Sr. kept the old hotel known as the Mt. 
Carbon Hotel and afterwards, when it was rebuilt and owned 
by my father, Michael Mortimer, it was called the Mortimer 
House. My Uncle Washington was a partner with my father 
for a time. The Feathers, of Reading, were proprietors of the 
hotel after we went out. 

"My father ran a stage line to Philadelphia and made 
money with it and the hotel. I was born in 1840. When I 
was a young man he was determined to give me a good education. 
Disliking the association of the hotel for a growing boy of my 
age he sent me to Prof. Elias Schneider's Arcadian Institute, 
at Orwigsburg, where I remained four years as a boarding- 
school pupil. 

"Of the early local stages, there was one running to St. 
Clair, one to Minersville and Tremont, another ran from Tus- 
carora to Tamaqua. The Philadelphia lines stopped at our 
house, too, but these were discontinued with the advent of the 
Eeading Railroad in 1849. The others ran until 1872, when the 
People's Railway was built to Minersville and the Schuylkill 
Valley branch of the Pennsylvania Railway was opened to St. 
Clair. Michael Weaver, hotel keeper, of Minersville was an 
early stage driver as was also his brother, Jos. Weaver, of Potts- 
ville. 

"A singular coincidence connected with the three drivers 



©Ill Sdjimlkill Cales. 259 



of these stages was that they were all lame men and cripples. 
The first, whose name was John Krouse, was the worst afflicted. 
John Gager was the most accommodating of men. He would 
take care of his drunken charges as if they were children, nurse 
the babies of his women patrons until they attended to business 
about town and would stop anywhere on his route to Minersville 
for passengers or bundles, 

"Andy Irwin was a natural born poet or rhymster. He 
rhymed on everything he said and was a most comical character. 

" 'Here comes Andy, he loves his brandy,' (he was a sober 
man) or when upon taking up his lines, he shouted, 'St. Clair, 
we'll soon be there,' are well remembered by the patrons of the 
line to that villao-e." 



REMINISCENCES OF OLD SETTLERS 



Daniel De Frehn, aged 80 years says : 

"I was born in Orwigsburg in 1825 and came to Pottsville 
in 1846, bought a lot, the site of my present residence, next the 
corner of Fourth and West Arch Streets. Col. James Nagle, 
afterward commander of the 48th Regt. in the Civil War, owned 
the corner lot and together we erected our dwellings which have 
both been occupied by our families, continuously, for almost 
a half century. 1 had previously built and lived in the house 
now occupied by Water Company Supt. Wm. Pollard, on Ma- 
hantongo Street above Eighth. 

"There was nothing but a dreary waste and a marsh on. 



260 ©Iti Sd)imIkiU Calcs. 



West Arch Street then ; and tronble constantly arose o\'er the 
course of the creek which ran along there and turned the corner 
toward the tannery. After every heavy rain our cellars were 
flooded and the Borough Avould do nothing to relieve the situa- 
tion. 

''The miners who worked at the Pott and Bannan mines all 
lived on Guinea Hill, in little mining cabins like those built 
at i^orth xVmeriea, where I worked at the erection of the houses 
for the ' Patch ' belonging to the Ceutreville collieries, on the 
Lewis and Spohn veins. The timber was not cut oif Bare Field 
and wild beasts roved around on the hill above Brown's Hol- 
low. 

"There were lively times in those days on Fourth of July. 
Daniel Klapp, a butcher who kept a stand in the old market 
house, in later daj's, was aj)pointed a special police officer to 
keep order. He was a man six feet in height and weighed id>«)iit 
oOO pounds. His appearance alone impressed evil doors with 
the power and majesty of the law, as he walked about in his 
best black suit, huge star on the lapel of his coat, and heavy 
club in his hand, the silk hat on his head adding to his height 
and importance. 

"On one occasion the Mc's, the O's and the Dutch were 
more than usually obstreperous and one after another were run 
into the town lock-up through his exertions. The Borough 
"jug" was in the rear part of the fire house, corner of Centre 
and West Race, where the Grammar school now stands. The 
lock-up had been filled full with a struggling mass of men fight- 
ing and cursing, all the worse for liquor, when Officer Klapp 
arrived with another customer. On opening the door he found 
.the COO}) empty, the birds had flown. The roar wall was not 



(©ItJ Scf)uglkill Cales. 261 



\'evv strong. The prisoners had united their strength and burst 
out the back wall of the structure. There were no more incar- 
cerations on that day ; there was no place to confine the prisoners. 

"Those were the days when snow in winter w^as often two 
feet deep on our streets. On one jiarticiilar St. Patrick's Day 
men went out on horseback to break the roads in order that the 
Ancient Order of Hibernians could parade. 

"There -were Indians about Pottsville as late as 1830 but 
they were of the harmless sort. The corner stone of the Henry 
Clay monument was laid July 26, 1852. There was a great 
parade. The firemen tui'ned out. There were speeches and 
music and creat crowds." 



THE NORWEGIAN CREEK 



The west branch of the creek which ran over parts of the 
upper end of West Market Street and along the base of Guinea 
Hill, proved very troublesome to the early settlers, who desired 
to build along the streets then layed out as far as Sixth Street. 
John Wagner, the oldest resident now living and aged 95 years, 
has this to say : 

"I was born in the Lykens Valley, near Fredericksburg, 
Lebanon County, in 1811, and came to Pottsville 62 years ago. 
James Lick, the great California millionaire and capitalist 
worked at learning his trade of cabinet making in the same 
place, then called Stumpstown. I knew him Avell as a boy. In 



262 ©ItJ Scfjttglfeill QTales. 



after years he had the cemetery laid out there and made other 
improvements. The late Peter W. Sheaf er, of Pottsville, the 
second wealthiest man in Schuylkill County, was born and 
raised near that place. I learned the trade of tanning and 
worked at it for Wm. Wolff and his son Wallace as long as the 
tannery was in operation. The plant was an extensive one and 
occupied the present site of the new Methodist Episcopal 
Church, corner of Market and Fourth Streets. 

"Irving Gallagher, tanner, came here at the same time. We 
built homes in the woods at Yorkville. I sold my house, now 
occupied by J. 11. Williams, to the late Thomas Bannan, Esq., 
and removed nearer to my work. A man named Kline operated 
the tannery afterward o^vned by D. B. Seidle, at the corner of 
Eighth and Market Streets. These tanneries used the water of 
the creek which ran along there to fill their vats. We used the 
black oak bark which came principally to us in wagons from the 
vicinity of Freidensburg and Pinegrove. Wm. Wolff erected 
a large new dry house and increased and improved the plant 
at different times. IT© was very successful in his business and 
died leaving an estate worth several hundred thousand dollars, 
all of which was lost or swallowed up in a short time by his heirs 
and the business Avas closed. 

"The west branch of the creek which ran through the tan 
yard and across Market Street, through a culvert, frequently 
overflowed and made no end of trouble. At such times Galla- 
gher and I took torches and entered it and cleaned out the bed. 

"We entered the culvert at the tan yard and went under 
where now stands A. W. Schalck's residence, doA\Ti to the Trin- 
ity Reformed Church, where it turned over and ran under Dr. 
A. 11. Ilalberstadt's house. 



©Ill SdjuDlkill Eu\e&. 263 



"There was always trouble at the archway at that turn 
of the creek, the dirt and offal collecting there and stopping 
it up. Gallagher and I came out near the Rosengarten prop- 
erty, corner of Third and Market Streets. We wore gum boots, 
trousers tucked in, but were always wet through. There was 
little said in those days about sewer gas, but it was a dangerous 
thing to do. 

"There was a brick yard on the site of G. W. Mortimer's 
house, corner of Third and West Norwegian Streets. Fisher 
and Depley made bricks where the silk mill now stands. The 
old blacksmith shops were the great news centres of town in 
the early days. Men congregated around them and in the shoe 
shops as they do now about the cigar stores, to gossip and learn 
what was going on among their neighbors. 

"There was a blacksmith shop at the corner of Second and 
Market Streets, near the Archbald building site. One near 
the Post Office building, another on the northeast corner of Sixth 
and Market Streets and one next to the English Lutheran 
Church. Gabe Fisher^ who was a noted town character, re- 
moved to different places as the lots were bought up and finally 
died at his shop in the rear of the P. & R. Coal and Iron Shops, 
W. ISTorwegian Street. 

"No! There were no ghosts or witches about Pottsville 
that I ever heard of. In the Lykens Valley, when I was a 
young man, there were great disputes over fences. Wherever 
these feuds existed the witches were said to come together at 
night and dance on the disputed lines and at the nearest cross 
roads. I went to a party one night and had to pass Koppen- 
haver's where the witches were said to be. It was very dark 
and late when I came home. As I neared the place I saw some- 



264 ©lb ^djuulkill gTalcs. 



thing white coming toward me. I did not run. I could not. 
When it came close I found it was a white calf." 



FOUGHT THE READING COMPANY 

"To keep the telephone people from planting their poles 
on jour property by sitting on the spot is nothing new. When 
the Schuylkill and Susquehanna branch of the Reading Rail- 
road was first surveyed and laid out from Reading to Harris- 
burg, a woman did something greater. She prevented a great 
railway company from building their new line over a point 
on their farm, where her father lay buried. She was a widow 
with two children. The farm from which we had considerable 
black oak bark for the tannery, lay beyond the Summit near 
Auchey's. 

"The engineers surveyed directly over her father's grave 
and told her to remove the remains, the company would pay 
the damages and the route of way over the farm would be as- 
sessed and she would be awarded its market value. The woman 
refused. The grave should not be disturbed, the road could not 
pass over that spot. For two weeks, night and day, she camped 
beside it, the children bringing her such necessaries as she 
needed from the house and attending to her wants. At her 
side was a heavily loaded rifle and she threatened to shoot the 
first man that attempted to come near the enclosure. 

"In vain the surveyors and officials tried to parley with 
her. The gun was loaded for bear and no man's life was safe. 



mti Sci^uglkill Sales. 265 



At the end of that time the route was changed and the road 
ran farther down the declivity. The lonely grave on the knoll 
may still be seen from the car window as the train passes by 
the spot. 

"Fourth of July was a great holiday in the early days. 
The main streets were trimmed with spruce and evergreens 
and the houses were decorated with red, white and blue bunt- 
ing. There was a parade of the military in the morning. The 
fire department turned out. A hay wagon trimmed and filled 
with little girls and a goddess of liberty in the centre repre- 
sented the States. Stands selling root beer, cakes and mead, 
peanuts and candy, were strung along the curbstones. The 
Declaration of Independence was usually read. In the after- 
noon, when many had taken something stronger, free fights were 
frequent and a fire at night often finished the day." 



STAGE COACH DAYS 



Mrs. Annetta Brobst, wife of Daniel Yeager and daughter 
of Christian Brobst, who died several years ago, at the age of 
83 years, had a remarkable memory. She related many inter- 
esting incidents of the early days : 

"My father, Christian Brobst, of Orwigsburg, built the 
stone house corner of Centre and West jSTorwegian Streets, 
afterward owned by \Ym. ^Mortimer, who kept a general store 
there, and now occupied by his sons F. P. and Horace Mortimer 
as dry goods and jewelry stores. My father was a harness 



266 ©11" Scf)uglftill QTaks. 



maker and did a large business employing one man alone to 
work on ladies' saddles. He had as high as fourteen men at 
work in his shop at one time. 

"He invested in coal lands and owned tracts afterward 
deeded to the Ttidgways, Samuel Sillyman and John Barman. 
There was trouble after his death. I never knew or understood 
exactly what it was but the lawyers came again and again to 
examine the papers we held and to investigate what claims we 
had to the titles. There was treachery somewhere among the 
Brobst heirs, some of whom must have sold their birthright 
for a mess of pottage. The Brobst lawsuits have proven at 
least that much. My grandfather was William ZoU, the first 
settler of Pottsville after the ISTeimans. 

"I remember coming to Pottsville in the stage before we 
moved here and also taking the trip to Philadelphia from 
Orwigsburg in the stage ; which was a great thing for a young 
girl. My father took me to Philadelphia. We were two days 
going and the same time returning. Part of Centre Street was 
a corduroy road over the swampy and marshy ground. The 
stage stopped at a small stone tavern, afterward bought and 
enlarged by Wm. Mortimer, Sr,, and known as the Mortimer 
House. There was a plank on stilts from the block where the 
stage stopped to walk across to the tavern, the gutter and street 
being nothing but a pond or mud hole in wet weather. 

"I recollect when my father, at one time, had a sick spell 
and I waited upon him. He was feverish and asked at night 
very frequently for cold water. There was a town pump at 
Hannah Gough's, near the site of the Eeading Kailway depot, 
and another on the corner of Centre and Market Streets, where 
the L. C. Thompson hardware store now is. I went out at 



©Iti Scj^uglktll 8Lak0. 267 

night to the latter to get him a pitcher of fresh water but he 
insisted that the water at Hannah Gough's was so much fresher. 
I went do\\Ti there but was very much afraid, owing to the 
roughness of the locality, most of the places from Centre to 
the Railroad being saloons. 'No one harmed me and father 
recovered again. There was much malaria owing to the 
swamps. Centre Street was raised a number of times and the 
early settlers built as high as they could. 

"My father, Christian Brobst, built the three first houses 
on that corner, the two adjoining our 0"\:^ti and afterward 
owned by the Joannes heirs and subsequently by Jacob Miehle. 
My brother, Perry Brobst, and husband, Daniel Yeager, were 
both saddlers and followed the business in Pottsville. There 
was a brick yard on the site of the Pennsylvania depot and 
afterward a carriage factory. The road about the Reading 
depot at Hannah Gough's was corduroy to the canal and mill. 
The creek from Market Street ran over from Third Street and 
under the White Horse tavern, corner Centre and Mahantongo 
Streets. Its course was changed where the Borough built the 
culverts and it ran under Centre Street. The Philadelphia 
and Reading Railway Company also changed the course of the 
main branch of the creek when they built the branch road on 
Railroad Street. The coal on this road from the Delaware and 
other mines was run down by gravity and mules took back the 
empty cars." 



268 ©lt> Scl)uuIktH Er\£&. 



THE MORTIMERS AMONG EARLIEST 
SETTLERS 



Borough Treasurer Samuel M. Mortimer has many recol- 
lections of the early days and remembers much that "was handed 
down to the present generation, from hearsay. He says : 

"My father, Andrew Mortimer, brother of William Morti- 
mer, Sr., built this house (near corner of Twelfth and Market 
Streets), in what was then a dense woods. I was born here and 
have lived in the same house almost continuously for seventy 
odd years. John Wesley Mortimer, Jack Temple, Pott & Ban- 
nan and a man named Miller operated the coal mines on Guinea 
Hill. I remember often to have walked into the old drift from 
West Arch Street, a gang-^vay having been left open in the 
vicinity of Seventh Street, as late as in the 'Sixties. A man- 
way, too, existed in the rear of the old brick school house, corner 
of Fifth and West jSTorwegian Streets, where I went to school. 
The boys often crawled down it to recover their balls and in 
the earlier days the miners entered the mine from that point if 
they were working at this end. I remember to have seen them 
with their lamps on their heads. 

"George JI. Potts and Job Rich worked the York farm 
veins. The Minersville Street School House was built on the 
site of an old colliery and the veins worked by Charles Lawton, 
undermined the very heart of Pottsvillc. The gangways com- 
ing from the Salem colliery at Young's Landing were still ex- 
posed in the rear of the P. and R. Coal and Iron Shops ; when im- 
provements were made to extend the shops, they ran under 
Greenwo(xl Hill ; the Potts , McKeclmov and otliers worked these 



©Itj ScfjitglkiU Calcs. 269 



veins. A coal breaker stood in ]Srorth Centre Street, at the 
corner near the gas house. 

"The school referred to was only for boys. Christopher 
Little taught there and had as an assistant a man named 
Kutchin. The boys called him 'Little Billy.' Joseph Bowen, 
in after years Borough assessor, was a teacher. Small boys wore 
gingham aprons in those days and would sit for hours in school 
. ]vissing a slate pencil through the hems. 

"How I hated- those aprons, but my mother insisted upon 
my wearing one. There was a large flat stone in the vicinity of 
the old water basin, now Yuengling's Park, and under it I hid 
my apron, returning for it after school. I carried on this de- 
ception for a long time but was finally exposed after returning 
home several times without it. 

"I learned my trade of hatter with Oliver Dobson and 
Nicholas Fox. We made fine wool hats and afterward nothing 
but silk hats, all hand made and for which there was a great de- 
mand. John G. Hewes also learned the trade but never worked 
at it. T was in the hat business for years until I disposed of the 
stand and good will to my nephew, C. AV. Mortimer. 

"Those were lively days in politics. When Henry Clay, 
the great Whig leader who opposed the annexation of Texas, 
was defeated and James K. Polk, of Tennessee, the Democratic 
candidate who favored it was elected, the Whigs were opposed 
to adding any more slave States to the L^nion. A barbecue was 
given by the Democrats on the vacant lot at the corner of Elev- 
enth and Market Streets. A whole ox was roasted. That ^\•:l> 
in 1844. 

"In 1848 when Taylor and Fillmore were inaugurated aiul 
in 1856 when Jimmy Buchanan went in there were ox roasts in 



270 ©Iti SdjuuHuU EahQ. 



Garfield square. I was a Democrat then. There were live po- 
litical clubs formed that marched about during the presidential 
campaigns shouting and singing for 

" 'Tippecanoe and Tyler, too.' 

"Nathaniel Mills, was a great local politician. Tie was a 
rabid Democrat. He went west for a time when gold was dis- 
covered in California and returned a Black Whig. The Demo- 
cratic clubs had it in for him and marched around singing : 
" 'Oh ! Poor IsTatty Mills, 
^ Oh ! Poor ISTatty Mills, 

Give him a dose of castor oil, 
And then a dose of pills.' 

"Harry K. ]!^ichols, late chief engineer of the P. & R. R. 
W. Co., was born in Pottsville the same year I was. His father^ 
Lieut. F. B. Nichols, of the United States Navy, who was active 
during the war of 1812, built the house on Market Street now 
occupied by the Y. M. C. A. It was subsequently owned and 
occupied by the late Benjamin Haywood, who with Lee and 
Harris formed the firm that operated the Palo Alto Rolling 
Mills and were with George W, Snyder and Wm. Milnes, iron 
founders and coal operators, some of our leading capitalists and 
most enterprising business men and foremost citizens. 

"Those were the days before the Government exacted a tax 
on spirituous liquors. The farmers, many of them, had their 
own stills and were moonshiners. What they could not sell of 
their grain and corn they turned into whiskey and brought it 
to town to the stores to trade for or sell as part of the results of 
their agricultural pursuits. Some of the leading families of 
Pottsville, today, owe their present prosperity and share in large 
estates to this early traffic in whiskey. The first brewery I knew 



©ItJ Sdjuslfeill (ITales. 271 

of was one on the river road to Port Carbon run by A. Y. Moore. 
The founder of the Yuengling plant began in a very humble 
way on Schuylkill Avenue, in the rear and above the present 
brewery. He manufactured and retailed his first stock. The 
Lauers' opposite the Hospital came afterward and the Market 
Street, Mt. Carbon and another brewery near Mechanicsville, 
still later, 

"Circuses often visited Pottsville. They held forth in the 
vacant block in Garfield Square opposite the English Lutheran 
Church. The crowds were large and there was no trouble reach- 
ing the shows." 



OLD TIME SCRAPPERS 



George W. Eiler, former foreman at the P. R. C. & I. 
Shops, now retired, tells the following story : 

"My father, Daniel Eiler, came to Pottsville in 1846. He 
built the brick residence next to the corner of Eighth and 
Mahantongo Streets where our family lived for more than a 
quarter of a century. Among the many stories he told me of 
the early days, was one about the old time scrappers. 

"There was a great rivalry between Berks and Schuylkill 
Counties as to which could claim the strongest man, the best 
fighter in a pugilistic encounter, the best pedestrian and the most 
powerful man in a hand to hand fist fight. 

"Pottsville put up Jonathan Wynn, a blacksmith for 
Potts' and a well known Methodist class leader, for W^Tin could 



272 ©Iti Scbuglktll iJalfs. 



both, fight and pray, and Berks County backed as their man 
(his name I have forgotten) a regnhir bully with a big repu- 
tation. 

"A day was set for the fight. At a given hour the two 
men set out from Reading and Pottsville and walked toward 
each other, each man was accompanied by his backers and 
friends. They met at a point near Hamburg. Wynn not only 
walked the greatest distance in the given time, but he did 
up the Eeading bully in such a shape that he was never heard 
of in Pottsville again, and Jonathan Wynn was for a long time 
known as the champion all-around fighter of Schuylkill County. 

"Those were the days when the early constables of the 
county would walk thirty or forty miles to serve a writ and 
think nothing of it. If they could get a friendly lift from the 
driver of a farmer's wagon they accepted, but seldom depended 
upon it. They had their own routes over the mountains and 
and by circuitous paths, and covered great distances. Among 
these were Christian Kaup, of the Brunswicks; William Boyer, 
of Orwigsburg; Peramus Brobst, a mail carrier; Stephen 
Rogers, constable, of Pottsville, and others. 

"A branch of the Schuylkill Canal, which ended at Port 
Carbon, ran along Coal Street to a point opposite the coal and 
iron shops. There was a landing there for the loading of the 
boats with the coal that came down from the Delaware. There 
was a mill race near this point to the old grist mill. 

''In 1813, several small openings were made around Potts- 
ville for the digging of coal. The article, taken out, was sold 
to the blacksmiths and others in the neighborhood for 25 cents 
a bushel at the pit's mouth. The shafts were sunk only a few 



©Ill Sc^uglktll STaks. 273 



feet into the crop of the vein and the coal was raised by means 
of the common windlass and buckets. 

"It was not nntil 1823 that coal was fomid on Guinea 
Hill, where horse power was first used as an improvement on 
the windlass. The railroad was not built nor the canal com- 
pleted and the common method of transportation was by horse 
and wagon. Later years brought with them the newer im- 
provements in mining and increased facilities for transporta- 
tion. 

"In 1842, the Pott and Bannan mine on Guinea Hill was 
considered one of the best in the region. It was known as the 
"Black Mine." Its veins in the upper lifts were soon ex- 
hausted, and not desiring to dig deeper, the working was aban- 
doned. People were curious to see the operation of mining 
and visitors were frequent. It was here that the Eev. A. 
Pryor, a retired Episcopal clergyman, who lived at the comer 
of Fifth and Market Streets, met with an accident through 
Avhich he was lamed. He had been visiting the operation when 
the accident occurred. 

"There were many of the first business men who came 
here penniless that left their families well-to-do and even 
wealthy, some of the present estates held by their descendants 
having had very humble beginnings. These men were of the 
sturdy sort, and like all self-made men, were more or less proud 
of their own work — the carving out of their own fortunes. 
Many good stories could be related of their thrift, economy and 
foresight and the sagacity shown in their investments. Among 
them were: Samuel Thompson, merchant; Wm. E. Boyer, J. D. 
Woolison, Nathan Wetzel, tobacconists; the Fosters and Daniel 
Schertle, shoe dealers; David Yuengling, brewer; Joseph 
18 



274 ©It) &cf)uglktll Ea\t&. 



Shelly, boat yard ; Clemens, Parvin and L, F. Whitney, steam 
mills; Joseph Stichter, tinsmith; and Daniel Esterly, hardware. 
The Morris', merchants ; John Crosland, who took the first boat 
load of coal to New York and others. Some of these met \vith 
heavy reverses in after life." 



THIRTY THOUSAND COPPER PENNIES 



Squire J. W. Conrad relates the following: 

"My grandfather, J. W. Conrad, who came here from Ger- 
many, was a Justice of the Peace for many years. He spoke 
French fluently and was acquainted with some of the dialects 
of the Gennan confederation and those of Southern Europe, 
although German was his mother tongue. He was called on 
frequently to write or translate letters from one language into 
another and to straighten out matters, legally, for the early 
foreigners. He conducted a foreign steamship agency at his 
office next to the corner of Third and Market Streets. Owing 
to his knowledge of the European ports and his acquaintance 
with different languages tliis branch of his business proved a 
very lucrative one. Those were the days when abstracts of 
lands were written out and there were no printed forms of deeds. 
A Justice worked hard, there was so much transcribing. 

" 'Jimmie' Sorrocco, an Italian, was an early organ grinder. 
He delighted the children of those times with his barrel organ, 
which he carried about on his back and rested on a stout oaken 
stick while he ground out the few tunes in its scant repertoire. 



©Ill Sci^uslJ^'ll EaltQ. 275 



But it was not 'Pop Goes the Weasel/ nor 'Home, Sweet 
Home,' that the youngsters cared particularly about; but the 
pet monkey that amused them with its antics, capering up the 
sides of houses and porches to gather up the pennies given it. 

"Sorrocco lived on Guinea Hill, in the locality known as 
Italy, where he and his wife kept a boarding house for their 
counti-ymen. They were very frugal, particularly Catalina, 
who kept cows and sold milk to add to the family revenue. 
Catalina was a great beauty, with olive-brown skin, big black 
eyes and heavy coal-black hair. At times 'Jimmie' became 
very mucli incensed at the admiration she excited and the at- 
tention she received from his visitors. 

''This seemed only to amuse Catalina and she would laugh, 
showing her great white teeth and shaking the long gold ear- 
ings in her ears as she measured out the milk from her bright 
cans, for she was a clean and industrious woman. Then she 
would tell her patrons in the soft tongue, she knew very little 
English, 'Jimmie so jelly, so jelly,' meaning jealous. 

"When the couple purchased the property at Eighth and 
Laurel Streets, known as ^Little Italy,' my grandfather con- 
ducted the transfer and made out the deed. The price was 
three hundred dollars and it was paid for with thirty thousand 
pennies, the large copper pennies, bigger than a twenty-five cent 
piece, then in circulation. They had all been gathered together 
by Sorocco and his barrel organ and the monkey, and were saved 
by Catalina. 

"The pennies were weighed, but as some were worn more 
than others the result did not even up and they were subse- 
quently re-counted. It took a half day with several at work 
to figure out tlie amount. 



276 ©ItJ Sd^uglfeill Eales. 



QUEER CHARACTERS. 



"There were many queer characters about town. One of 
these, 'Jake' Danes, a harmless, half-witted man, who acted 
as 'boots' about the old Mortimer Plouse^ was the terror of 
the children. The mere mention that 'Jake' Danes was com- 
ing that way would scatter a whole neighborhood at play in 
a few minutes. 'Jimmy the fiddler,' Avas another. He was 
addicted to his cups, but as his name indicated, sometimes 
played for dances. Doctor Bobbs (not Boggs) was another. 
He was a lame negro paralytic and shook all over when he 
shambled about. He sold corn salve and was the sandwich- 
board man of his time. No parade was complete without Doc- 
tor Bobbs bringing up the rear covered with advertisements. 

" 'Jimmy Donnegan,' a good workman and a member of 
the old 'Hydraulian' fire company, was a terror to everybody 
when under the influence of liquor. He was a strong, broad- 
shouldered, well-built young man and rather good looking, 
and few cared to tackle him when he was in his fury. He was 
incarcerated one night in the old stone lock-up in the rear of 
the 'Drollies' fire house, next to the old stone school house for 
girls, corner of Centre and West Kace Streets, for safe-keeping. 

"Neglected the next day, his thirst after his spree became 
almost intolerable and he made the neighborhood hideous with 
his yells and curses but no one relieved him. Kecess came and 
the girls filed out and gathered below the grated window above, 
where Donnegan appeared and plead: 

" Tor the love of God, give me a drink of water, I am 
dying of thirst!' 

"The oirls were afraid and the window was hiah when one 



©lt( Scf)uglkill STales. 277 



of tlie most venturesome — now a well-known and sturdy matron 
of North Second Street, with several gro-wn up sons — matured 
a plan. The girls stood together, London Bridge,' she mount- 
ed on their shoulders and others filled the pint tin-cup which 
'Jimmie' took from her hand and drank through the iron bars. 
When the bell rang he was still pleading for ^niore, more,' 
like Oliver Twist." 



CURFEW SHALL NOT RING TO-NIGHT 



"A curfew ordinance would be nothing new for Pottsville. 
When the Borough streets were lighted with small oil lamps 
inserted in the old glass enclosed lamp posts, it was cuftomary 
to outen these lamps at ten o'clock. At each corner as the 
watchman, who carried a small ladder to ascend the lamp-posts, 
outened the lamp, he cried in a loud voice : 'Past ten o'clock,' 
and the people were expected to be in their houses and ready to 
retire. Those abroad after that hour were looked upon with 
suspicion and few cared to brave the darkness of the streets. 
Corporation moonlight meant something then. 

"Opposite our home, on West Norwegian above Eighth 
Street, the greater part of the square was enclosed with a liigh 
paling fence which extended from Norwegian to Mahantongo 
Street. It was known as 'Kussel's Field' and was at first enclosed 
and cultivated. Crops of corn and potatoes were raised in it by 
the owners. The huge driving gate had accidentally been left 
open one night and an individual, rather the worse for John 
Barleycorn, had lost his bearings and wandered into the field. 



278 ®lti Sdjuglktll (ITalcs. 



"It was a dark night after twelve o'clock when the neigh- 
borhood was aroused with the loud yells of one in distress and 
the oft-repeated cry: 

" 'H where am I ? H where am I V 

"The neighbors arose and some procured lanterns and pro- 
ceeded to tlie source of the alarm, when a man was found half- 
way between the square on Ninth Street, inside the field. He 
had wandered in the gate and was clinging to the palings of the 
fence, which he had followed around to that point. He w^as 
piloted to the street by my father, who took him part way toward 
his home. 

"The early watchmen in those days were brave men. They 
encountered many toughs in their rounding up of the town but 
there was little burglary that I remember. The watchman were, 
Elijah ^uinn, a powerfully built man, Wm. Stout, Daddy Mey- 
ers, Jacob Mervine and Wm. Beidleman. Chief of Police 
Georffe Smith came afterward." 



ORIGIN OF GHOST STORY 



A Pottsville lady, who desires to be nameless, relates the 
following : 

"My father and mother, came here in the early days from 
Chester County. We lived first at Mt. Carbon, soon after the 
opening of the Schuylkill Canal. My father was an old-time 
printer, although he subsequently engaged in the confectionery 



©It Sctuslfeill Cales. 279 



business and other branches before his death which occurred 
while he was still in the prime of life. 

"Near our home stood a large stone house that had a bad 
reputation. It had been used as a company boarding house 
during the building of the Mt. Carbon Railway. After the 
boarders left, the family contracted small-pox and several mem- 
bers died of the disease. The father and owner becoming dis- 
couraged left and went to ISTew York where he worked on the 
Erie Canal. 

"Houses were scarce but no one would rent the big stone 
house. Strange noises were heard there and it had the repu- 
tation of being haunted. 

"Once a week, on publication night, for the newspapers 
of to"WTi were all weeklies then, my father was at work all 
night. Before going to the office he would fill the pail with 
water from the neighborhood pump for use until morning. 

"One evening he left without having performed this little 
office, forgetting it probably and my mother discovered late at 
night that there was no water for the children, who were cer- 
tain to ask for a drink. 

"Passing: the stone house on her return she heard the 
strange noise that had so often been described. She set the 
pail down and softly crept into the house through an open 
window. 

"Here she saw — not a ghost but a frugal German who 
was building a house for himself nearby, hard at work with 
an axe cutting out the joists for his ovm use. The house on 
examination, afterward, was found to have been dismantled, 
too, of its doors and other appurtenances. 

"My mother left as quietly as she came but the agent of 



280 ®lt) 5rf)iiglkill SEales. 



the property was notified and tlie stone house, though ruined, 
was no longer haunted." 



INDIAN STORY 



The early settlers related that an Indian village stood in 
the locality lying between what is now Centre Street and the 
railroad, between East Market and East Arch Streets. Another 
stood on the site of the Charles Baber cemetery. Indian ar- 
rows and cooking utensils were found at these points. At 
Indian Run there was a large settlement and wigwams were 
pitched along the Swatara creek. On Fourth Street there were 
stones placed around Sharp Mountain by the Indians. They 
were called Indian steps. They may still be seen. There were 
not many Indians in this locality, yet the life of the early 
settlers was one of constant struggle with the roving bands of 
red marauders. As late as 1825 there were still a few red 
men in this vicinity, but they were harrtiless. Of one of these 
Mrs. B. W. Cumming, Sr., says her father-in-law, George H. 
Cumming, a member of the Society of Friends and an early 
settler, related the following: 

^'The Indian was known as Tecumseh and was an idle and 
dissolute fellow who lived on the hill above the Odd Fellows' 
Cemetery. He was detected in stealing from a neighbor, and 
with his wife was brought before a Justice of the Peace to an^ 
swer the charge of theft. The poor squaw broke down and 



©ItJ Scfjuglkill 9EaIc0. 281 



sobbed and cried like her white sisters might have done under 
a similar circumstance. This disgusted the red man who said 
to the 'Squire : 

" 'Squaw no good. She cry. Me no squaw, me Injun 
brave, me not cry. Ugh!' 

"Tecumseh was let go, a bystander paying the costs and 
fine imposed." 



THE FIRST PHYSICIANS 



Dr. A. H. Ilalberstadt, who is the last of his generation 
of leading Pottsville physicians, which included such practi- 
tioners as Doctors J. C. Swaving, J. T. Carpenter, D. W. 
Bland, C. H. Haeseler and Samuel Berluchy, had just returned 
from the Pottsville Hospital, where he had performed a deli- 
cate operation upon a prominent Tremont resident, when the 
writer ventured to call upon him. 

The doctor has long passed his — th birthday but his 
tenacious grip on youth still enables him to do a tremendous 
sight of work and he is still as busy and active as he was at 
any time in his long and useful medical career. 

"I would rather w^ear out than rust out," is one of his 
mottoes for the promotion of good health and a well-rounded-out 
longevity. 

Knowing from previous experience that he had an ap- 
preciative listener, which is far better than being a good con- 
versationalist on such occasions, he at once launched on a 



282 ©It Scf)uglkill Cales. 



technical description of the surgical case in hand and the 
complications encountered. The operation was a success. (The 
man is alive and well to-day.) 

From that story he gradually drifted into a history of 
hydropathy, osteopathy, the origin of homeopathy, Christian 
Science and almost every other known form of pathology, all of 
which, it is a matter of regret, cannot be reproduced here, for 
Doctor ITalberstadt is a most interesting conversationalist and 
fluent talker when he warms up to the subject. 

During this time he waited upon several office patients 
that had been awaiting his arrival, attended to a business caller 
and dismissed another social visitor; between whiles answer- 
ing several calls on the two 'phones in his private offices, and 
keeping up a running but by no means a desultory conversation 
in the interim. 

"You want to know about the early physicians of Potts- 
ville ? Why, of course ; why didn't you tell me at once ? 

"Too much interested in what I was saying ? Oh ! well, 
I must think about them first. 

"My father. Dr. George Ilalberstadt, came to PottsviUe 
in 1830. His colleagues in the first years were: Doctors Mc- 
CuUough, Sorber, William Tweed and Zaccur Praull. Col. 
Zaccur P. Boyer, born in Port Carbon, was named after the 
latter. 

"The Pennsylvania State Medical Association was formed 
in the early 'Forties. It was the parent of the Schuylkill 
County Medical Society, of which my father was the president 
for five years. It was formed in 1846. 

"In 1832 the cholera was raging in Philadelphia. It 
broke out in PottsviUe with several virulent cases. On the 



<©llj SrijuglftUl STales. 283 



northwest corner of Twelfth and Mahantongo Streets stood a 
block of workingmen's houses. They w^ere built of stone, white- 
washed white and were two and a half stories in height, with 
dormer windows in the upper story, which was unfinished. 
Here the first Pottsville Hospital was established by my father 
for the care of cholera patients who were isolated in the upper 
story of that building. The name, the Pottsville Hospital, 
clung to the block until it was demolished, after its last owner, 
Oliver Dobson, had disposed of it. 

"Dr. George Halberstadt built our present family home 
and the adjoining houses about 1838. After my marriage I 
opened practice and lived in a building on the site of the house 
occupied by m}^ son. Dr. G. H. Halberstadt. 

''Dr. Cecil Berryman was an early physician. He lived 
on Centre Street, where the Green jewelry store is, or adjoining, 
and also at the corner of Third and Mahantongo Streets. He 
was injured in an accident by a runaway horse, from the effects 
of which he subsequently died. His wdfe maintained herself 
with a fancy dress goods and trimming store on the northwest 
corner of Third and Market Streets. Another early doctor 
was Dr. Brady, who lived in and built the Charlemagne Tower 
house now occupied by Baird Snyder. 

"Col. Anthony Hagar and John T. jSTichols, (the latter 
lived in the brick house next door to Captain D. H. Seibert) 
were both surgeons in the Civil War and good doctors. 

"Dr. James S. Carpenter, Sr., came to Pottsville about 
the same time my father did. There were, of course, many 
others and if T should include the county physicians they would 
fill a volume. 

"Drs. D. J. McKibben, Henry C. Parry, Henry P. Silly- 



284 ®ltj Scfjuglkill Calcs. 



niau, Thomas Turner, J. B. Brandt, J. D. Brantner, C. P. 
Herrington, J. F. Kern, Douglas K. Bannan, a 3'oung man of 
great promise, were among the early doctors. 

'There Avere a number of druggists, too, who acted as 
physicians, some were intelligent men and others were quacks. 
There was a Doctor Spear here who for a time cut a broad 
swath. He was smart, too smart, and landed in jail branded 
as a forger and counterfeiter and subsequently was convicted 
and served a term of imprisonment in the Eastern Penitentiary. 
During his trial in the Schuylkill County Courts his counsel 
set up a plea of insanity. 

"In presenting the proofs of his client's condition his law- 
yer entered the plea that Spear was demented because he asked 
for a turkey and plum pudding dinner in jail on Thanksgiving 
Day.' 

"I will tell you of Dr. G. W. Brown, of Port Carbon, who- 
was one of the best pln^sicians the county ever had. He did not 
like Dr. Samuel Berluchy, who was an especial friend of mine. 
"What was that? You remember how Dr. Berluchy 
looked? Oh! Yes! I believe the ladies of those days all 
thought him handsome. 

"He was a tall, large, well-made man. Stout, but with 
not an ounce too much flesh for his height. Smooth face and 
with skin as fair as a babe's and heavy, wavy, jet black hair. 
He was cultured and refined, had genial manners and was very 
companionable ; everybody liked him except Brown, whose rea- 
sons were solely professional. 

"Dr. Berluchy came here from Gettysburg.' His father 
had been a surgeon in the army of Napoleon and the son studied 
privately under Harmer, the great anatomist at the U. P., 



©ItJ Scl)UDlktll EaltQ. 285 



Philadelphia. Berluchy was a widower, he had been married 
to a member of the Flood family, a wealthy and cultured Roman 
Catholic family of Philadelphia. 

"His last illness came in the prime of life. I attended 
him and knew he would die. I effected a reconciliation between 
my patient and Dr. Brown and two better pleased men you 
never saw. 

"After Dr. Berluchy's death, Dr. Brown was taken ill. 
Knowing more of the former's good qualities and capability than 
any man in Pottsville, I considered it a duty to write his obituary. 

"Shortly after, I met Dr. Brown, who had recovered, and 
said, 'Well ! Brown, I am glad to see you out again.' 

" 'Yes,' said the testy old chap, 'I fooled you, didn't I ? 
You thought you would have a chance to write an obituary 
for me and cover me over with beautiful flowers like you did 
Berluchy, but I was too smart for you.' 

"The obituary had gone in the 'Miners' Journal' as the 
newspaperman's work (C. D. Elliott's) but Dr. Brown under- 
stood the technical language and recognized my hand." 



LET THERE BE LIGHT 



The advance from the primitive stages of artificial light all 
came within the scope of the early settlement of Pottsville up to 
the present time. The "Schmutzomsel," an iron receptacle with 
chain attached to suspend it to the wall or ceiling, with the rush 
tallow dips, were the first lights used. The former was filled 
with any fat or grease in which was inserted a wick or rag to 
burn. Then came tlie crude oil and camphene or flnid lamps. 



286 ©l^ ^cbugti^in Cales. 



Many burned the common tallow candle solely owing to the 
danger connected with the use of fluid. 

In 185 — a beautiful young lady, one of the belles of Potts- 
ville, was burned to death through the use of camphene. She 
was tilling the lamp whilst holding it in her lap and it in some 
w^ay ignited and exploded, scattering the fluid over her clothing, 
which took fire and parts of her body were burned almost to a 
crisp. She was engaged to be married and her untimely death 
created great consternation among the users of that death-deal- 
ing source of illumination and many householders banished the 
fluid lamp and camphene canteen at once and forever from their 

premises. 

* * ***** 

The thriftiness of the early settler was something not to 
be sneezed at and would be little understood in these days of 
easy access to the stores and plentitude of supplies for the 
family cooking. When Peter Peterpin first came to Pottsville 
he boarded with a family of whom he was very fond. The wife, 
a hardworking and industrious woman in addition to cooking 
for her own family kept several boarders. 

One day Peter chanced home early to dinner. The main 
dish was a generous part of a boiled ham to which were cooked 
dried string beans and potatoes, a toothsome dish in winter for 
a hungry man, when well cooked. 

Just as the boarding mistress was dishing up the dinner, 
she discovered that a little mouse, that had in some way gotten 
into the bean bag, was cooked along with the mess. It was the 
work of an instant to take the rodent by the tail and throw it 
into the swill pail. 

Peter was enjoined to silence, there was nothing else in the 
house to cook and the meal was served and as usual enjoyed by 



©It) ScfjugHtill STaleg. 287 



the men. The cook and the former, however, confining them- 
selves to bread and butter and coffee. Peter had lost his con- 
fidence in his boarding mistress and whether this was an added 
incentive for his marrying soon after is not related. 

****** ^ vc- 

The road from Pottsville to Simbury was traveled exten- 
sively by the drovers and the dealers in cattle, in the early days, 
made the trip frequently on horseback with their outrunners of 
boys and men to corral the steers and hogs. One of these, the 
founder of a leading wholesale establishment in Pottsville and 
who retired from the business a wealthy man, said, "there is no 
animal in the brute kingdom as stubborn as a hog. 

"When I was a young man in Germany, where I learned 
the trade of butchering, I could do any hard work but when it 
came to killing I always sickened and was compelled to leave 
the job to others. My employer said nothing but after a time 
turned me out alone with a large drove of hogs to take them to 
a dealer forty miles away. I could never relate all the trouble 
I had with those hogs. They strayed everywhere and would not 
keep the road but I finally delivered all but two that were 
drowned. Although I never cared to do it, ever after that I 
could kill a hog as easily as I could look at one." 



OLD HISTORIC MANSION 

Home of Bukd PATTERSoisr^ Esq. 



No description of the early history of Pottsville is com- 
plete without a reference to Burd Patterson, Esq., and the fine 
old mansion he occupied over a half century ago. 

]\[r. Patterson came here from the vicinity of Royers Ford 



288 ©Iti Sdiuplkill (ZTales. 



and was a large owner of tracts of coal land in the Schuylkill 
and Heckscherville Valleys. He was also interested in the 
Pioneer furnace and other business enterprises. He was one 
of the most enterprising of Pottsville's foremost citizens and 
did much to further the advancement of its business interests. 
He had two sons, James and Joseph, who were engaged in the 
coal business with their father. His brother George, who came 
to Pottsville with him, had been married twice and had a large 
family of sons, the adults of which were also engaged in the 
coal and iron business. Edward, Frederick, Stewart, William, 
Theodore, James, Duncan and the scions of the younger branch 
of the family and the descendants of the first named, made an 
important clan in the old coal town. 

Burd Patterson was a direct descendant of James Patter- 
son, who came to America in 1714 from Salisbury, England, 
and settled in Lancaster County. He was a grandson of 
Edward Shippen, the first Mayor of Philadelphia, and of Col. 
James Burd, of the Colonial War, for whom he was named. 
With such distinguished parentage and with large means at 
his command, together with his business prestige — he was a 
fine old-school gentleman, dignified, yet affable and easy of 
approach — Burd Patterson was a power in the community and 
"The Pattersons" cut a prominent figure in the social circles 
of town. 

The Burd Pattersan mansion, now occupied by Wm. Lewis, 
Esq., former Superintendent of William Penn Colliery, stood 
alone in the square, south side of Mahantongo, between Eighth 
and ISTinth Streets and occupied the entire block. That and 
Cloud Home were considered the handsomest mansions in town. 
The latter was built later. It was built on a knoll (the street 



©Iti Scfjuglkill ErIzq, 289 



has since twice been raised) terraced in front and with hand- 
some flower gardens. On the east side, on Eighth Street, on 
the site of the residence of L. C. Thompson, stood a white 
frame structure used as an office building for the Patterson's 
coal and other business interests. This was for many years in 
charge of Owen Keenan, clerk. 

On the west side, on the site of the Riollay Lee mansion, 
was a large enclosure with a high board fence, the vegetable 
garden of the estate. In the rear was a fine grove of tall pine 
trees, some of them are still standing, that made a beautiful 
background to the imposing picture. A natural spring of 
water from Sharp Mountain furnished the supply for the house 
to which it was conveyed in pipes from a small covered reser- 
voir on the grounds. So great was the source that a pipe from 
it to the front pavement ran almost constantly and provided 
drinking water for not only the surrounding neighborhood but 
water was carried in pails from the spring by people to West 
Race Street, where the poorer population and colored people 
lived in the early days, their houses having no water facilities. 
The water was cold and was in great demand in the days when 
ice was not in general use. Patterson's spring had a great repu- 
tation, too, as a trysting place for lovers. A fine avenue of trees 
lined the curbstone and the square was a rendezvous for walks 
in summer time. 



19 



290 ®l^ Sd}U2lkill STales. 



AN EARLY ROMANCE 



If Plato had seen Eose Sheeley lie would have been more 
than ever convinced that, "beauty was a delightful privilege 
of nature,'^ as he is quoted to have said, when he taught the 
boys and girls of Athens. Rose was tall and symmetrical in 
figure, and graceful in movement. Her skin was of a milky- 
whiteness, her hair brown, her teeth white and even, her eyes 
a deep blue-gray. She was of a quiet, retiring nature, almost. 
a recluse at times and yet had many admirers. 

The family lived in the old stone house, on the brow of 
"Guinea Hill" at the head of Twelfth Street, opposite Samuel 
Heffner's. The father, a German, was the gardener at the Burd 
Patterson mansion. 

Rose Sheeley, like every other pretty girl, had a lover, 
whom, as the sequel shows, she adored. Her father objected 
to this lover and provided another suitor for her hand in mar- 
riage, whose claims he strenuously pressed and whom he at- 
tempted to compel her to marry. 

Poor Rose grew very morbid over the situation and one 
day after a stormy interview with her father repaired to 
Tumbling Run dam and drowned herself. She jumped into 
the water from a small pier jutting into the dam from the 
centre of the breastwork of the first dam. When her body was 
found, which was not without great effort, she was discovered 
to have tied a shawl about her waist and filled it with heavy 
stones that her body might sink the more quickly. 

Her lover, a sturdy citizen, who married afterward and 
raised a large family, now gro\vn-up men and women, was 



©Ill Scfjuslkill EaU&. 291 

most beside himself with grief at Rose's sad ending but the 
suitor provided by her father quietly disappeared from towTi. 
The excitement over the suicide was very great. Hundreds 
visited the scene of the drowning and an immense crowd in- 
spected the remains and attended the funeral which took plac<3 
on a Sunday afternoon and attracted the curious from far and 
wide. 

A short time afterward, Sheeley, the stern parent, was 
found dead in the garden of Burd Patterson where he had been 
at work the night before, according to his usual custom, weed- 
ing in the cool of the evening. 

Sheeley was discovered by two small boys, Edward Patter- 
son and a companion, in the morning, lying on his face, a tuft 
of grass in his hand. It was first thought he had suicided but 
the inquest returned a verdict of heart disease. 

He was not an unkind man and it was known that he was 
deeply worried over the untimely end of his daughter Rose 
and the part he had taken toward bringing it about. For a 
long time it was rumored that Sheeley's ghost could be seen 
walking about in the vicinity of his home, on the hill, and also 
in the Patterson garden. Two gray-haired citizens, of town, 
relate that they sat up several nights in the rear of Baber 
cemetery to lay the ghost but he did not walk on those nights. 

DINAH AND VILKINS 

Prior to the suicide of poor Rose Sheeley, a circus came 
to town, old Dan Rice's, the clown of which sang the song, the 
first verse of which ran: 



292 ®lti Sc{)uglfeill EaltB. 



"As Dinah was walking in the garden, one day, 

Her papa came to her and thus he did say, 

Go dress yourself, Dinah, in gorgeous array. 

And I'll have you a husband both gallant and gay." 
Chorus. 

''Tu-ral, li-ural, liu-ral, li-ay, etc." 

The ballad went on to relate that Dinah had a lover and 
objected to the suitor, provided and cared nothing for the silken 
gowns and gold jewelry ; and on the wedding day set, was found 
dead with a cup of "cold pizen" in her hand of which she had 
j^artaken for Vilkin's sake. 

The song took like wild fire. Francis Alstadt, bookseller, 
who kept store in Mutton Row where Union Hall now stands, 
or next to it in the wooden building, disposed of hundreds of 
copies of it (at one cent each) and everybody around town, as 
was the custom with the catchy songs those days, sang it. 

Pretty Rose Sheeley was of a very romantic disposition 
and it was supposed that this song, which she with everybody 
else sang and re-sang, influenced her to do likewise and end h?r 
vouns: life, like Dinah, for her "Vilkin's" sake. 



RECORD OF POTTSVILLE POSTMASTERS 



The following is a list of Pottsville Postmasters from the 
establishment of the office up to the present time. G. C. 
Schrink, the present incumbent, in kindly furnishing the list 
to the writer, jocosely says, in appending his own name: "And 



©10 Sdjuglkill Ea\t&. 293 



G. C. Shrink, from March 8, 1899, to as long as the public 
and the administration mil permit him to remain." 

Thomas Silliman January 11, 1825 

George Taylor June 4, 1825 

Chas. Boyter Sept. 20, 1828 

Joseph Weaver Febr'y 21, 1839 

John T. Werner Sept. 8, 1841 

Michael Cochran -^^^g- 16, 1844 

Daniel Krebs, Sr Febr'y 15, 1847 

Andrew Mortimore May 2, 1849 

John Clayton April 18, 1853 

Henry L. Acker June 14, 1858 

Margaret Sillyman April 20, 1861 

Amanda Sillyman April 16, 1882 

Elizabeth Sillyman June 21, 1882 

James H. Mudey July 27, 1886 

Wm. K. Cole, no date on rcH'ord or file. 

Louis Stoffregen Febr'y 9 1895 

G. C. Schrink March 8, 1899 



EARLY IRON WORKS— THEIR ESTAB- 
LISHMENT 



The Pioneer Furnace -was started in 1837. Here Burd 
Patterson, Mr. Lyman and Xichols Biddle. of the United States 
Bank, Wm. Marshal and Dr. Geisenheimer, of the Yalley Fur- 
nace, experimented to smelt iron with anthracite coal. They 



294 ©Iti Srfjuglftill SralEg. 



were successful in 1839. The Orchard Iron Works were found- 
ed by John L. Pott in 1846, and were operated subsequently by 
Lewis Yastine. 

The Pioneer Furnace passed through different hands and 
finally was purchased by Charles M. and Hanson Atkins, in 
1853. In 1866 the old plant was torn down and a new one 
erected. Two more furnaces were built. The old furnaces, 
after being idle for a number of years, were torn down in 
1905. The Washington Iron Works, The Wren Brothers, E. 
W. McGinnes, John T. ISToble and Pomeroy and Sons, on the 
site of the lower P. & R, C. & I. Company shops, or near that 
point on Coal Street. Jabez Sparks was also in the business. 
The stove works of Simon, John and Joseph Derr; the nut and 
bolt works, and the Stephen Roger, Roseberry and other small 
castings foundries on Railroad Street, gave employment to a 
large number of men. In 1835 Haywood and Snyder erected 
the Colliery Iron Works on the site of the upper shops. A 
foundry was built in 1836. Benjamin Haywood withdrew in 
1850. The business was continued by George W. Snyder until 
purchased by the Reading Company. 

The Pottsville or Fishbach Rolling Mill was built in 1852 
by John Burnish. In 1864 this mill was purchased by the At- 
kins brothers who rebuilt it. After a period of idleness it was 
almost entirely rebuilt and enlarged by the Eastern Steel Com- 
pany and at this writing, 1906, is one of the mammoth and 
leading establishments of its kind in the United States. 

The Palo Alto Iron Works were established by Richard 
Lee, George Bright and William Harris. In 1855 they became 
the property of Benjamin Haywood and Co., and subsequently 



©Ill Scfjuglkill 9Ealc0. 295 



in '56 Mr. Haywood became the sole proprietor. The Reading 
Car Shops now cover this site. 

The Pottsville Water Company was organized April 11, 
1834. The Pottsville Gas Company came into existence in 
1849. 

The first newspapers were the "Freiheitz Presse," Miners 
Journal," "Pottsville Advocate," "Gazette and Emporium," 
"Jefferson Democrat," "Americanisher Republikaner" and 
"Pottsville Standard," all weeklies. 

The editors were John T. Werner, Benjamin Bannan, E. 
O. Jackson, G. L. Vliet, Henry Hendler, Phillip Hoffa, J. P. 
Bertram, Henry L. Acker. The Weekly "Schuylkill Republi- 
can" was founded in 1872 by C. D. Elliott. Elliott and Beck 
opened a partnership for several years, when the former as- 
sumed charge. The "Daily Republican" was founded in 1884 
by J. H. Zerbey who has been the editor and proprietor up to 
the present time, 1906, Charles G. Meyer is the owner of the 
"Evening Chronicle," which was established in 18Y2 and existed 
until a year ago, under various ownerships. 

The early builders, contractors and dealers in mountain 
stone, and carpenters were: Charles Gillingham, Adam and 
Daniel Eiler, Jeremiah, Charles, Isaac and Henry Lord, 
Capt. Isaac Lykens, Isaac Severn, John McBarron and Hugh 
Dclan and Daniel Old. 

Among the lawyers not heretofore mentioned were E. P. 
Dewees, Hon. Linn Bartholomew, Howell Fisher, G. W. Far- 
quhar, Hon. F. B. Gowen, B. W. Gumming, Hon. John W. 
and Judge James T. Ryon. 

Early coal operators: Wm. Milnes, Wm. H. Johns, Judge 



296 ©It) Sdjuglkill OTalES. 



Wm, Donaldson, Samuel Sillyman, Andrew Oliphant, John 
White, Col. G. C. Wynkoop. 

The Hon. James Cooper, a United States Senator, had his 
residence here for several years. He lived in Morris Addition. 
He had an interest in the coal business of the county. John 
Shippen, President of the Miners Bank, was one of the historic 
family of Philadelphia of that name. 

The Hon. Robert Palmer, State Senator, son of Judge 
Strange Palmer, who had also a son, Strange Palmer, was ap- 
pointed ambassador to Ecuador and died of a fever while en- 
route to South America. Deputy Controller Frank Palmer 
was a son of the former. 

The life of Francis B. Gowen, President of the Reading 
Company and for years a resident of Pottsville, is like an open 
book to residents of the coal region and the State of Pennsyl- 
vania. These are but a few of the notable residents of Potts- 
ville. 



RECAPITULATORY AND RETROSPECTIVE 



It is with sincere regret that the author lays down the 
pen at this point .of the history of the early days in Schuylkill 
County and the Borough of Pottsville. Much that might prove 
entertaining must necessarily be omitted. We beg the indul- 
gence of any who may feel overlooked by this omission. The 
share their ancestors had in the formation of the local 
history of this locality is a matter of local pride to all 



<©llj Scfjuglkill Caleg. 



297 



connected with the best interests of the county in which w« 
have cast our lot. The mere knowledge of such facts is in 
itself a reward commensurate with the general results involved 
in the summing up of the whole. To still further carry on the 
details in story would involve a new era that would include a 
voluminous recount of the several hundred thousand inhabit- 
ants that now people the area of Schuylkill County and the 
vast industries and business resources that arc productive of 
its present great wealth and enlarged interests in the business 
world. Charles Dickens said: 

"A troublesome form, and an arbitrary custom, prescribe 
that a story should have a conclusion in addition to a commence- 
ment; M^e have therefore no alternative." 





PART VII 



OTHER TALES 



PART VII 



OTHER TALES 



HILDA, A MORMON BRIDE AND MOTHER 



CHAPTER I. 




T ILDA BEUNHILDE stood at the doorway of the little 

brown adobe shack on the great Mojave Desert. Not 

a living creature was in sight as with hand shading her 

eyes she scanned the glittering white sand of the broad 

expanse, in the bright rays of the scorching morning sun. Far 

away lay the beautiful Wasatch mountains, the Jordan river, 

Salt Lake and the ]^ew Jerusalem. 

She remembered when two men in shiny black clothes had 
visited their little home on the coast of Norway and told them 
of the beautiful city and the land that was overflowing with 
milk and honey. The mother died of ship fever on the voyage. 
Her father, the two boys and she had drifted with others r,o 
Utah. Some went farther West but the majority sought work 

301 



302 ®Iti Sdjiiglfeill STaks. 



in the silver and ore mines until the missionaries should return 
and give them each the promised farm. 

They had brought their few effects to the deserted hut, 
once occupied by cattle ranchers. The long pack trains some- 
times passed there and the drivers left them supplies, in return 
for which the girl would cook them a savory stew, coffee or 
mend and wash their scant clothing until their return. There 
was little for the cow and burro except the meagre doles of feed 
left them and the wild cactus seed and sage brush. 

Word came that their father was killed. He had been 
working upon a draft of empty cars and was in the act of apply- 
ing a brake when he lost his footing on the bumper and was 
thrown in front and run over, being literally hacked to pieces. 
His countrymen buried him on the mountain side with no other 
requiem to sing his praise except the soft soughing of the pine 
trees, so like the growth in their own dear native land. 

Hilda was just sixteen, Hans ten, and Wilhelm seven years 
old. Slightly above medium height, well developed and plump, 
with a lithe and active frame, Hilda was the picture of health 
and rustic beauty. Fair skin, deep blue-gray eyes with blackest 
eyebrows, rosy-red cheeks, dimples and regular pearly-white 
teeth. Long thick plaits of yellow-golden hair hung to her 
shapely waist, which was encased in the low laced bodice with 
white spencer above. She wore the short skirt common to the 
Norwegian peasant girls and made a pretty picture. 

''Yes, they must go to the city. Hans worked with the 
charcoal burners. He would return on the morrow and they 
would go." 

A neighbor drove away the cow. They packed the pan- 



®ltj Sdjuplfetll STaks. 303 



niers of the burro with their bedding and few belongings and 
the start was made at dawn. 

CHAPTEK n. 

It was after noon when they entered the city. They sat 
by a stream and ate their frugal meal of black bread and curd 
cheese, tethering the burro that he might nibble the alfalfa. 

The glories of the hills were mirrored in the dense waters 
of the big lake. The sun shone in sharp relief on the bright 
silvery gray and blue waters. The far off mountain ranges, 
snow-capped at their summits, formed a life-like frame encased 
in battlements of sombre green or smoky blue for the wonder- 
ful city that lay at their feet. The caravan soon reached the 
Temple gates and tieing the burro in an obscure alleyway they 
went in. 

It was Sunday afternoon and they hesitated about entering 
the great Tabernacle which already contained several thousand 
people. Inside of the gate was another large building like the 
old Lutheran Church at home and Hilda said: 

" Let us go in here. There are ISTorse people inside from 
the Skagway; you can tell them by their dress." 

A woman spoke to them in the Scandinavian tongue, and 
after a time and the singing of a familiar hymn, a man arose 
and preached. 

" What mattered it if he talked over two hours on the 
thirteen Articles of Faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of 
Later-Day-Saints and the loyalty of its members to that 
church? " 

They knew nothing of " The Ten Tribes and their restora- 
tion, or that Zion will eventually be built on this continent, and 



304 ©It ScfjualktU Ealea. 



Christ upon his second coming will reign personally in paradis- 
ical glory in that city." Bnt they knew that at last they were 
among friends. The boys slept during the long and rambling 
harangue and Hilda thought she must be brave for their sakes. 
At the close the woman accompanied by a man approached 
them and in answer to their queries the pitiful little story was 
soon unfolded. 

Hilda said : " The boys must have schooling ; I will work 
my fingers to the bone, if I can but get the work." 

The boys entered school and Hilda was installed in the 
Bureau of Information, where Hannah Amundsen had charge 
of the girl clerks. She was assigned the care of the church 
literature, and all day until three o'clock she dusted and re- 
wiped the shelves and books, then she was free for school where 
she was fast mastering the language and making rapid progress 
in the studies prepared at night. 

They were cared for under the supervision of the ward 
visitors and the Mormon Church charity system which has no 
equal in the world. The Later-Day-Saints fast on the first 
Sund'ay of every month and every householder is expected to 
give the money thus saved to the poor who are helped until 
they become self-sustaining, then they in turn help others. 

CHAPTER III. 

Tall and dignified, with long flowing beard and a mustache, 
hair of light brown mixed with gray, blue-back eyes and of 
rather delicate physique and gentle manner, if he was a wolf in 
sheep's clothing, the animal was at least well disguised. Elder 
Carter was a handsome man. 

After a time Hannah told Hilda: " It had been revealed 
that she should be sealed to the Elder in marriage." 



©It) Sffiuglkill ^Tales. 305 



" But he has a wife," said Hilda. 

Hannah explained, " It is one of the rites of pur religion. 
The sealed marriages are sacred and kept private. The Com- 
mon Law of the Gentiles is against them. You would indeed 
be an ungrateful girl if after all our kindness you did not obey." 

A day came and she entered the Temple accompanied by 
Hannah. It was early in the morning and they took part in a 
preparatory service in the Assembly Hall. Removing their 
shoes they descended to the basement where they bathed in 
the women's baths. Hilda was given a beautiful robe and they 
entered the magnificent baptismal font room, where the Elder 
baptized her. The elegance of the surroundings overwhelmed 
the girl and she was as if in a trance. 

The wall painting, by Armitage, of Christ preaching to the 
ISTephites and the companion to it of Joseph Smith preaching to 
the Indians seemed to burn the figures of their subjects on her 
feverish brain. The splendid chandeliers, furnishing and dec- 
orations, heavy curtains, beautifully decorated ceilings and 
cornices of white and gold and artistic paintings, added to her 
bewilderment. 

The series of reception rooms and the private apartments 
of the President and his Hierarchy all beautifully furnished 
and adorned with choice paintings and full-length mirrors were 
passed until the three rooms that open south of the Temple 
auditorium were reached, each of these exquisite in decoration 
with large plate glass mirrors, stained glass windows and myr- 
iads of electric lights. The middle room was circular in form, 
with a domed ceiling, completely surrounded by jeweled win- 
dows and paneled walls, with red silk-velvet borders, delicate 
20 



306 ®l^ Scl}uglkiU ^Taleg. 



blue, white and gold colors predominating. Tlie floor inlaid 
with inch blocks of polished hard wood and on the wall the 
noted work of art of the Father and the Son appearing to the 
boy Joseph Smith. 

Here they stopped. The poor girl frightened beyond 
speech. Hannah, too, looked pale and could only sign her to 
keep silence. The curtain of the Temple was pushed aside and 
a hand motioned them to enter. 

Then under the arched roof supported by the Grecian col- 
umns with the dim light through the double row of stained glass 
windows shed upon them and in the shadow of the paintings 
of Lamboume, the Hill of Cumorah and Adam Ondi — Ahma, 
the harmonious blending of gorgeous colors, the artistically 
paneled ceilings, frescoes, borders and clusters of grapes, fruits 
and flowers, Hilda Brunhilde took the dreadful oath of secrecy 
and became the sealed wife for " Time and all Eternity," of 
Elder George Garter, a Priest of the Council and one of the 
Seventy. 

Of what followed she could not afterwards divest it from 
other dreams. ]^ature was kind to her; forgetfulness inter- 
vened. She found Hannah awaiting her in the Temple cor- 
ridor, who silently clasped her hand and together in the twilight 
they went to their hmnble home. 

Hilda lost her brightness. She no longer added her rich 
contralto voice to the Tabernacle chorus. She was listless, 
great clouds seem to blur her vision, spells of faintness fre- 
quently came and a hacking cough troubled her. Her work 
was performed painstakingly but mechanically. The girls be- 
gan to look at her suspiciously. 

Or was it her imagination ? Her frequent absences 



mti Sdjtiglkill SEakg. 307 



under the plea of sickness, when accompanied by Hannah she 
went into the countr}' and there met the Elder, whom she had 
respected and loved as a father, and — yes, she must admit it to 
herself — 

" Whom I now hate and loathe like a rattlesnake. Oh 
I will pray to the God of my mother, perhaps He will let me 
die young like her," she said. " It is no wonder the girls sneer; 
I am one of them no longer." 

At last the dreadful news was borne upon her ; there was 
another life aw^akening in her. She had been dull to recognize 
what others already knew. The Elder chided her for her gloom- 
iness and laughed at her fears and Hannah said: 

" You will be taken care of in the country miles away 
when the proper time comes. You must be patient." 

A day came when she could no longer endure the thought 
of her shame. " 'No w'ife in the sight of the law. How could 
she become a mother? " 

" I W'ill go to-night to the old home on the desert," she 
said, " and die there," 

She took up her studies that evening witli the boys and 
under one pretext or another remained about the house until 
they slept. 

Filling a leathern bottle with water and placing a little 
bread and cheese in a 'kerchief, she tied them about her waist 
and unlatching the door went out quietly. 

Her nimble feet soon led her up the Wasatch trail and 
here she paused to refresh herself from the intolerable thirst 
that controlled her and refill the bottle from one of tlie moun- 
tain streams. 

The moon was low but she ought to reach the shack a few 



308 ©Iti .$rl)usHuU Calcs. 



hours after sun-up. All night long she walked and when the 
sun arose paused. jSTothing was in sight but the white sand of 
the desert. A wind gentle at first, now became stronger and 
blew a perfect gale. The small particles of sand were blinding 
and tlie sun's rays burnt her delicate skin as the orb rose higher 
in the Heavens. 

These tracks, Merciful Father! they were her own. 
She had been walking in a circle all night. Eating the morsel 
of food she had and wetting the handkerchief with a few drops 
of water from the bottle from which she drank sparingly, she 
tied the handkerchief about her eyes and sank under a clump of 
wild cactus and scooping all the sand she was able to over lier- 
self she slept. 

The sun was low in the horizon when she awoke. How 
beautiful it looked as it sank in the West, its brilliant hues 
enriched with a halo of golden-orange and blood-red flecks in 
a sea of silver-white sheen and sea blue. But Hilda had no eye 
for anything but the desert, the sameness of which she felt Avas 
fast driving her mad. 

All night long she wandered and the next day was but 
a repetition of the first. Her limbs trembled, her breath came 
in gasps, her tongue and nostrils were swollen. She had bent 
her course toward the mountains and, "yes they were nearer," 
and below that dented ridge was the little hut, the only home 
she knew. 

" I can go no further," she said, " I may as well die here." 

She slept and dreamed of the old home. Her parents, that 
happy childhood; when she was awakened by the cold nose of 
an animal thrust into her face and the gentle licking of her 
hand with a rough tongue. What frightful monster was this 



©IK Scf)uglitill <Eale0. 309 



with his hot breath and great green and fiery red eyes. A 
gentle whinny awoke her. " It is, yes! it is the burro." The 
boys had lent him to the charcoal burners and after a few weeks 
at that work he had disappeared. He, too, sought home at the 
brown grass-thatched hut of the Mojave. 

She clasped her arms about his neck and kissed him, 
allowing him to lick her hand and touch her cheek with his 
cold snout; and mounting, bade him go home. 

The hut was reached. Some rain water in the little stone 
cistern quenched her thirst. She bathed herself and stood a 
stone jar full within reach and then clambered into the bunk 
and knew no more. Torrid fever and pain racked her and in 
the delirium she heard a faint wail. Wolves, wolves, or a cat- 
aiuount, perhaps. There was something alive in the bunk. A 
baby wolf; the fierce old mother would return. She took the 
creature and laid it high on the stone shelf outside the door. 
The wolf could get it. Fastening the hasp on the door and 
wetting her handkerchief in the jug and binding her temples, 
slio rolled into the rude bed. All night and the next day she 
babbled of water, talked to her father and mother and prayed 
in her baby-girlhood way. 

On the third day old Sam Patch with his pack and team 
came. His cheerful chirrup and "steady boys" changed into a 
grim oath as he stopped, as was his custom to cook his coffee and 
eat his rations at the shack. 

"A dead baby by all that's holy," he ejaculated. 

The door was soon burst open. "And Hilda too," he said 
as the fever-stricken girl sat up and gazed at him, but gave no 
sign of recognition. 

"It's them Mormons," he said, bursting into tears. 



310 <!5ltJ Sc!)uglkill STales. 



"Oh ! Father, I am so glad you came," said the girl, cling- 
ing to his arm. 

" Never mind, my dear! Never mind! Old Sam will make 
them sweat for it. We'll see what the laws of this land are 
good for." 

He bathed her face and hands as tenderly as if she were an 
infant, cooked some gruel which he fed her, encouraging her to 
think he was the father she called upon and then watched her 
until sleep came. Hastily fastening the door, he wrapped the 
dead babe in a blanket and did not rest until he had deposited it 
in the office of the District Attorney at Salt Lake and had told 
the story, not forgetting, however, to send the nearest woman 
enroute to Hilda's relief. 

" Take care of her and as soon as she is able she will be 
tried for infanticide. The post mortem discloses the child was 
born alive and died of neglect and exposure," said the attorney. 
" The parentage of the child will appear and the U. S. authori- 
ties will make a test case if she confesses to a polygamous 
marriage and a Mormon as the father." 

CHAPTER IV. 

The trial came; the court room was crowded. Hilda, pale 
and wan, sat quietly, apparently oblivious to all about her. Old 
Sam and the old crone in waiting sat on either side of her. 

When the charge was read, her name called, and she 
was required to enter her plea, she arose and with her slim 
white hands folded over the bosom of her deep black gown, 
said: 

" I have been very ill. I know nothing." 

There was a slight stir and way was made for a delegation 



©Iti Scf)uglktll (ITaks. 311 



of the Mormon Hierarchy, among the foremost of whom was 
Elder Carter. They entered the court and took their places in 
the front row of seats among the spectators. 

Hilda's passiveness was succeeded by a feverish excite- 
ment. She shook as with a chill and drops of perspiration stood 
out upon her forehead. Look where she would the Elder's 
penetrating eyes held her spell-bound. " Remember your oath," 
they seemed to say and she swayed gently in her seat and 
swooned in old Sam's outstretched arms. 

" Clear the room," ordered the Court, " the air is too close 
for the prisoner." But the order came too late, the mischief 
was done. 

No amount of cross-questioning could elicit more from 
the horror-stricken prisoner. " She did not know who the 
father of her child was. He went away. ISTo! she had never 
been married." 

" What mattered one oath more or less to her after the 
fearful one she took in the Temple? " she reasoned, inwardly. 

"It is always so, they will not break their oath," said the 
District Attorney, and old Sam swore publicly and privately 
and said, " He believed he could pick out the man from among 
the long-bearded, gray-haired rascals. He had his eye on him." 

The Jur\', through their foreman, a blue-eyed, flaxen- 
haired N"orwegian, rendered an acquittal of the charge of in- 
fanticide without leaving their seats. 

Several years after Sam Patch visited a farm in the 
Arizona wheat belt and here were Hilda, a happy Avife and 
mother, the Norse juryman and Hans and Wilhelm, grown to 
manhood. They urged him to remain and told him there was 
a seat for him vacant at their fireside. The old man tossed 



312 ©Iti Sdjiiglkill Cales. 

the flaxen-haired baby in his arms wiped off a tear or two and 
said: " He was glad he at last had a home, but he must be off 
to-morrow; the mule-pack would be too lonely without him." 



THE HISTORY OF A NEWSPAPER OFFICE 

CAT 



She was a tiny white kitten, a homeless waif that sought 
refuge in the "Daily Bugle" press rooms from the merciless 
teasings of the carrier boys and the cold, wintry weather. Her 
appeal to the fatherly janitor was not without its effect, and he 
adopted her at once as one of the fledglings of the department, 
where she bid fair to excel even the "Printer's Devil" in use- 
fulness. 

"Betty" could lay no especial claim to cleanliness, al- 
though she was a beauty and no mistake, her white coat was 
often nearer black than its original color, from frequent con- 
tact with the coal pits and inky rollers, and her feline whiskers 
were often smeared with paste from the paste-pot, on which 
she was supposed to subsist. She had many feline accomplish- 
ments, one of which was her penchant for springs on the fly, 
which excelled even those of the famous Zazel from the cata- 
pult in Barnum's, and which were as far-fetching as those of a 
politician who desires to remain in office under successive ad- 
ministrations. It was nothing uncommon for her to jump from 
desk to table or rail, a distance of eight to ten feet, and her 
plunges along the walls were regular sky-scrapers. 



mti Sctualkill EultQ. 313 



Like all of her sex she had a decided predilection for con- 
firmed bachelors. Every evening when the hands departed for 
home, and the press department was quiet, she solemnly marched 
up from the lower regions into the counting-room, where she 
was not allowed during the day, and perched upon the desk 
or on the back of the chair of the bookkeeper, and gravely 
watched the posting up of the day's array of figures. Her con- 
tempt for the woman hater of the editorial sanctum only 
equaled his aversion for cats, and she eyed him askance and 
with tail and fur erect, and this antipathy extended itself to 
the ladies' man, too, of the force, who offered her the burning 
end of a cigarette one day, after she had especially distin- 
guished herself — for she was a good mouser — in catching a 
young rat which she brought upstairs as a trophy for the book- 
keeper. 

Mice and paste were not her only articles of diet. When 
any copy was mislaid, proof or manuscript lost, it was all laid 
to the office cat, who was supposed to have eaten them, and who 
was put under training for the munching of all original copies 
on the "Beautiful Snow," or any effusions from the oldest in- 
habitant on his recollections of a colder winter than that of 
1903-4, or any other rejected manuscript; and local authors 
were warned not to require a return of copy. But Betty be- 
came ill after Thanksgiving, when a friendly neighboring meat 
merchant, who was not in sympathy with the diet the office 
cat in every well-regulated printing office exists on, surrepti- 
tiously overfed her with raw pork scraps, which proved too 
much for her digestion. The whole staff became alarmed at 
her condition, and even the disgruntled dyspeptic of the force 



314 ©ItJ Scf)uglkill Cales. 



tried to effect a cure for her with a package of grape-nuts 
which she kept in her desk for use when she was similarly af- 
fected, but the cat "wouldn't eat that stuff," said the janitor, 
and he didn't blame her ; he said "He didn't know how anyone 
could." 

Betty has a great future before her. It is hoped she will 
not be called to the cat kingdom yet. As a regular member 
of the newspaper fraternity it is expected that she will develop 
and eventually show a capability in revising copy and correcting 
proof, at least so far as puncturing such expressions from cor- 
respondents is concerned, as: "In regards to;" "My gentleman 
friend;" "Quite a few," etc., and that she will teach the re- 
porters to say people died a natural death, instead of "demis- 
ing," or that she will be able to tell the difference between 
"classical" music and caterwauling, or the use of any of the 
thousand and one hyperboles indulged in by overworked 
writers of newspapers with limited vocabularies of speech and 
slender repertoires. 

When she has accomplished this she will have fulfilled 
the mission of all good newspaper office cats who have large 
possibilities in their nine lives mapped out for them to fill, and 
then Betty may be sure of a flaming obituary, the last that can 
be done for anyone, much less a cat. Requie "scat!" 



TINY TIM AND POLLY 



HE Welsh of the Valley, and in fact of the entire coal reg- 
ion, had brought with them to Pennsylvania their love of 
singing, and with this love many of their national customs 



©Iti Sctuglkill Ealta. 315 



implanted within them and in the hearts of their forefathers. 
Among these the Eisteddfod, which is still a prominent feature 
of entertainment wherever an element of Welsh exists. Eis- 
teddfod (to sit) was the name applied to the assemblies of the 
Welsh bards and minstrels, anciently formed by edict of the 
kings; and the early musicians were of hereditary order. The 
Eisteddfods were suppressed for a time but revived again during 
the present century. In both Wales and in this counti*}' 
prizes are awarded for proficiency in the Welsh tongue, for 
original poems and declamations in that language and largely 
for chorus singing. At these gatherings some of the best 
choruses in the State, notably the one from Wilkes Barre that 
won the prize at the Centennial in Philadelphia for oratorio 
singing in 187G, and those from Scranton, at St. Louis and 
Chicago, taking similar prizes; in which choruses were included 
some of old Schuylkill's best singers, these are examples of the 
high ideals aimed at and the results attained by these Welsh 
organizations. 

Primrose and the valley northwest of M , was then 

heavily wooded. The huge coal operations that have since 
sprung up in that vicinity had not altogether yet denuded the 
locality of its primeval beauty and devastated it of its forests. 
The streams tributary to the West Branch were still silvery 
in their rippling beauty and uncontaminated by coal washeries. 
The huge culm banks stood unmolested in their blackness, a 
monument, with their large proportion of coal in them, to the 
lavish wastefulness of the early coal miner of the black 
diamonds — for the proportion in these dirt banks of good coal 
was large and is a growing temptation to the avarice and com- 
mercial enterprise of the present generation, and also the cause 



316 ©ItJ Sci)UDlitill Enks. 



of the ruination of valuable farming lands and the contam- 
ination of the region's streams with their washings. 

Polly Edwards stood at the window of one of the little 
black company houses. There was nothing to see, if she was 
oblivious of the beautiful mountain scenery, but the steam 
ascending from the power house of the collieries and the huge 
black breakers that were in sight, but she was apparently 
looking out into space and from the pucker in her freckled but 
comely face was thinking and the reflections were ever and 
anon from grave to gay. 

A look about the homely little room showed that every- 
thing was in apple pie order or as nearly so as she could 
make it. The step stove had been polished, the floors freshly 
mopped, the tubs Avere ready for the huge kettles of hot water, 
for her father and Tim; the miners wash all over immediately 
after their return from the shift, they must to dislodge the tiny 
particles of coal dust or suffer untold torture with their skin 
and bring on disease. 

In the oven was a huge beef heart stuffed and roasting 
with a dressing of leeks at hand and a pot of vegetables was 
simmering on the back, while a pot of coffee and a fresh baked 
pie stood on the neatly spread table, all ready for the toilers. 

Polly was just nineteen, blue-eyed and with hair that curled 
so tight she could scarcely get out the kinkles. Her nose, it 
was true, was decidedly a pug and her freckles deep-tinted, 
but she had a milk-white skin and the most good-natured smile. 
Her mother had died when Tim was a baby, he was thirteen 
now and she had been her father's housekeeper ever since 
and a mother to Tim. 

Tim was bright and had stood high in the school and ah I 



(©It) Srfjuglfitll STales. 317 



that was just it. Why had her father permitted him to leave 
and go to work in the breaker? It was not necessary. His 
tender white skin would become grimy, his bright blue eyes 
seared, and his curly brown locks entangled with the thick 
black coal dust. It was all on account of that foolish gibe 
of the neighbors' boys. "Where do you work, Tim?" 
"I work East, I work West, 
I work over at the Billy Best." 

And it was at the "Billy Best" he went that morning for 
the first time, in spite of her pleadings to the contrary. Her 
father had said no, at first, but finally said yes, when Dan (he 
was her sweetheart) had added his "wheedlings" to those of 
the boy. No good would come of it she felt assured. 

It M'as the miners' Saturday. To-night they would all go 
to town for the four belonged to the chorus, which met in the 

Congregational Church in M to rehearse for the contest 

at the Eisteddfod, at Wilkes Barre, on the coming St David's 
Day and this was the last rehearsal and St David's Day next 
Tuesday. Dr. Parry himself would be present that night to 
arrange about the contest and the prizes, and they would all go 
o\or to the other region, nearly fifty miles away, but that was 
nothing for was not that big man. Dr. Wolsieffer, coming all 
the way from Philadelphia to be one of the adjudicators? 

Their society was small but they could make the welkin 
ring with the "Hallelujah Chorus" from Handel's Messiah, and 
was the "Comrades in Arms" ever better sung than at their last 
meeting? She was among the contraltos, her father a baritone 
and Dan among the heavy bass; and how Conductor Roberts 
stamped, fumed, and perspired until he evolved the present 
orderly harmony out of almost chaos. Evening after evening 



318 ©Iti ^cfjuglkill Caks. 



tliey had practiced in the basement of the okl Lriek church on 

S street, until the neighbors in that vicinity had declared 

them the most unmitigated nuisance and said "they would be 
glad when it was over." 

Then there was Tim, how beautiful his boy tenor was. He 
alone of ail the other boys could sing the tenor solos and com- 
pete for the prize for Dr Parry's "Mabz Morwr" (The Sailor 
Boy) and Ghent's ''Yr Haf" (The Summer), Tim could sing 
them, she knew he could. He would get the five dollar gold 
piece, and the musings went on. 

But what was that; the whistle at the "Billy Best?" It 
was not yet quite time to change shifts and she watched; Yes, 
there was the mule, boy astride, starting out from the breaker, 
a sure signal of some one hurt at the mines. Who was it? 
Surely not her father or Dan, they Were too experienced 
for any of the ordinary accidents that were always happening 
the raw helpers and the careless laborers. If it had been an 
explosion the boy would stop at Granny William's, as she Avas 
better at dressing burns than any doctor.. If not he would 
come on to the patch and give the alarm and then speed on to 

M for a doctor, for it was before the days of telephone or 

the organization of the corps of "First Aid to the Injured." 

• Curiously at first she watched the flying hoofs of the mule 
and his reckless rider. Yes! he was coming up to the patch. 
Their's was the last house in the row and still lie was coming. 
The neighbors were all at their doors and windows and some of 
the fleeter ones ran toward the boy to anticipate his sad tidings, 
which he scattered right and left. 

Polly's heart was in her mouth, a great rushing sound 
filled her ears, and try as she might she could not understand 



©It) Sc|)uglktn EaltQ. 319 



a word the boy said but he seemed to be waving his hand to her 
and with dilated eyes and tremblins; form, she watched him, 
yes, it was their house and an agonizing shriek broke upon the 
air and with a loud "Oh ! Dear, Dear God ! It's my Tim !" she 
sank fainting in the outstretched arms of her neighbors, who had 
hun-iedly come upon the scene. 

Soon they brought the inanimate form of little Tim 
to the house, but Polly could not be aroused and went from one 

swoon into another, until Dr. B arrived to alleviate her 

misery with an opiate; and kind friends administered to her 
sufferings through the night and subsequent bitter days of grief 
that followed. 

The same spirit of fun and frolic that led Tim to go to 
work at the early age of thirteen against the remonstrances of 
his foster girl mother, caused his death. The head boy who 
was working at the top rollers communicated that mysterious 
signal with his fingers down the steplike line of the huge screens 
to the next and so on down to the bottom, as was their daily 
custom, that, 'It was ten minutes before whistle" when those 
on the lower level began a species of tag and Tim ran with 
them. There was a dull thud, a scream, and all was over with 
tiny Tim. He had fallen between the rollers and his limp body 
came out with the coal in the chutes. Let us draw a veil over 
the sorrows of the grief-stricken little family and the recrimin- 
ations of the self-condemned and heartsick father. 

There was no meeting of the chorus in M that night. 

They could not sing at Wilkes Barre now, they said, their chief 
singers were gone, and there were sad hearts in the little com- 
munity that mourned with the little family, that like Rachael 
of old refused to be comforted because their loved one was not. 



320 ©It" Scl^uglkill (ITalcs. 



Tim was buried in the Congregational Cemetery in M- 



There was no hearse but the little body was borne to town on a 
bier decked with flowers and streamers of ribbons and the 
same ribbons, the colors of the St Ivor and St David Societies, 
with the national rosettes were tied about the right arms of 
the eight boys who carried the bier. A large concourse of people 
followed the remains to their last resting place. The Edwards' 
were well known and many came to the funeral from as far as 
Lansford, Kingston and Plymouth in the other anthracite coal 
basin, and delegates were present from the county towns, 
Mahanoy City, Shenandoah, Tamaqua, etc. 

They did not follow in a funeral procession, two and two, 
as is the American custom, but walked in the broad street and 
filled it from curb to curb, marching with solemn tread, men, 
women and children, and singing with a mournful volume of 
sound, that re-echoed through the village, the familiar funeral 
hynm: 

"Ai marw raid i mi 
A rhoi fy nghorph i lawr? 
A raid i'ni hen aid ofnus ffoi 
L'r tragwyddoldeb mawr ?" 
Which translated into the English is: 
"And am I born to die? 
To lay this body down ? 
And must my trembling spirit fly 
Into a world unknown?" 
Years have passed since then. Polly married .Dan and her 
father sits in the chimney corner and croons over another tiny 
Tim. And as Polly looks at the constantly increasing number 
of her little brood, she cannot be too thankful that the State 



©in ScJ^uglitill Cales. 321 

Legislature has fixed the limit that boys may only work in and 
about the breakers at sixteen years of age, and that the compul- 
sory educational law must be obeyed and they must attend 
school until that period. 



THE DEAD MAN'S FOOT 



CHAPTER I. 

A great strike in the anthracite coal region of Pennsylva- 
nia was on. Word had gone along the line that the miners and 
railroaders would unite and all transportation of coal cease. 
The District Superintendents of the great corporation had re- 
ceived private information from the officials of the Philadelphia 
& Reading Company that the huge plane at Gordon, used for 
hoisting the cars to the head of the mountain, would be aban- 
doned by the company, in retaliation, and the coal carried 
around it, thus dispensing with the labor of hundreds of men 
permanently. 

David Davidson was the Superintendent at the plane, over 
which in prosperous times a gigantic traffic passed. He re- 
ceived a good salary and occupied, with his young wife and 
sister-in-law, the pretty cottage belonging to the company, on 
the summit above the village. It was a responsible position, 
and his prospects for advancement were good, but yet he was 
not a happy man. 

Davidson began active life, as a boy, at the lowest round 
of the ladder, carrying water, marking "coalies," waking 
21 



322 ©It) Sctuglkill Ea\t&. 



tlic iiiiiiit ci'cws at tlicii' lioiiu's, and in tlic bniik honscs, Icarn- 
ini>- tel('<;i'a])!i_v. tcndino' switclies and actinu' as eni>in(! hostler 
and brakenian in turn; step Lv step lie advanced to his pres- 
ent position. Closely affiliated with the workingman from his 
youth, it was not surprising that his sympathies were with the 
men in the impending struggle and against the great corpora- 
tion. 

His wife, Anna, and Kate, her sister, were much alike in 
appearance. Kate, however, being the taller of the two and 
fuller in figure. Both were graceful in carriage, with that 
lithesome, easy stride, common to people who live among the 
monntains. Anna's hair and eyes were brown, her disposition 
gentle and retiring, her manner quiet even to that repression 
of action that denotes a deep and delicate sensibility and the 
refinement that is part of the natural inheritance of a woman of 
culture and education. 

Kate was a blonde, with masses of light hair, coiled on the 
top of a shapely head, her forehead was broad, her eyes a deep 
gray that shifted their color to bro^vn and sometimes, it must 
be confessed, under deep provocation, to black. She was viva- 
cions, with a vigor of manner that betokened a strong vitality 
with perhajDs a tinge of impetuosity. They were orphans. 

They were seated at their noonday meal, which Davidson 
had left a few minutes before almost untasted. The table daint- 
ily laid, with its polished glass, clean linen and bright old- 
fashioned silver service, figured china, and a carefully-pre- 
pared dinner. 

■^'Anna, has David told you he resigned and will leave for 
the West next week ?" said Kate. 

"Yes, he spoke of it at noon. If the plane closes perma- 



©Ill Sc^uglittll STales. 323 



nently, he will be given charge of the lumber yards at R- 



which I am afraid he will not accept. He is tired of the strug- 
gle, his sympathies are with the men, and he has decided to go 
West and take up one of Uncle Sam's claims and farm. As if 
we knew anything about farming." Anna broke down and 
sobbed. Kate did not reply, and the young wife walked to the 
window to conceal her emotion. 

Gordon is Iniilt on the summit of one of the spurs of the 
Broad Mountains, in the eastern jjart of the State, in the cen- 
ter of the anthracite coal basin. It was planned for wide, 
clean streets to intersect at right angles on the broad plateau, 
which nature had apparently formed for the site of a city of 
enlarged environments. From any point, on a clear day, seven 
distinct mountain ranges can be counted without the aid of a 
glass. It was a familiar scene, but her eyes eagerly followed it. 

The spirals of smoke curling into the azure dome of the 
gold-flecked sky above denoted the location of the different 
collieries. The "Bald Eagle," ''Shoo Fly," "Excelsior," "Coffee 
Mill," and a dozen others, with the quality and output of coal 
from each of which she was as well informed as any of the 
operators. Along the mountain sides ran the branch I'oads 
from the breakers, on which could be seen moving the black 
box cars that at this distance looked like toys with their tiny 
motors. 

Below in the valleys were the lateral roads, that joined 
the main branch farther on, their rails lay like mere threads 
aside of the black, sluggish waters of the river. It was early 
spring, nature wore its wildest dress. The gigantic rocks 
loomed up bare and uncovered on every side. Soon the moun- 
tain laurel would bloom, the wild lionovsuekle and mountain 



324 ©ItJ Sc])ii2lkiU STaks. 



lillies burst forth, then the huge pyramids of cuhn would be 
hidden from sight in a wilderness of beauty. The monster en- 
gines were still throbbing and snorting at the head of the plane, 
as they drew the loaded cars up the steep incline, the ugly little 
"barney" in the rear looking as self-conscious as if it alone did 
all the work. In the cemetery in the valley their parents were 
buried, how could they leave all they loved for the flat, monot- 
onous prairies of the West ? 

"We are all alone in the world, Kate," said Anna. ''How 
can I leave you here ? I do not like the West, and I always 
hated farming." 

"But stock raising and growing Avlieat are different from 
what we know of farming and I will go too," replied Kate. 

"What will become of your school ? You must not leave 
it." 

"Oh ! there are schools everywhere, even in Kamschatka, 
I will get another." 

They cried a little, and after the fashion of their depend- 
ent type of glorious womanhood thus accepted the decree of 
destiny one of the sterner sex had forced upon them against 
their wills. 

The strike followed. The railroad engineers went out 
first. The collieries suspended, one by one, leaving men for 
deadwork only. Every effort was made by the Union to make 
it universal. The company carried its orders iuto eff"ect at 
once, and the ponderous machinery of the })lane was removed 
to the city machine shops, making a deserted village in a short 
time of the pretty little town. The plane had always been a 
costly ])lant, and a road was already lieing built around the 
mountain to take the place of the ahaudoned incline. 



(©It ^djuglktU Cales. 325 



''I always wanted to follow the course of the star of tlie 
empire westward, and the strike makes it easier," said Davidson. 

He was a spare built man of middle height with brown 
curling hair and determined and yet kindly looking blue eyes. 
His appearance showed strength. His form was wiry, he had 
great knotty muscles and seemed built for endurance. Self re- 
liance verging on obstinacy was a strong point in his character, 
this allied to a naturally affectionate nature and good morals 
made of him a man to be not only respected but beloved by 
those imder him, and trusted by his superiors. The question 
had come. The company or its employees. He chose the 
workingmen's issue and went out with the strikers. 

Their preparations to leave w^ere soon made. A public 
sale disposed of their pretty furniture Avith the exception of one 
suite, a few cots, the cabinet organ,, the kitchen range, cooking 
utensils, dishes, linen and bedding. Transportation was too 
high to take much, besides there would be no room in the 
Kansas dugout. 

Davidson left the following week, the girls expecting to 
spend a month with relatives until their home Avas in readiness. 
The month lengthened into two before they received the sum- 
mons to come. The adieus to friends were sorrowful indeed, 
on Anna's part, she cried bitterly wherever she went. Kate 
assumed the philosophic role. 

"I do not want to go from the dear old mountains of Penn- 
sylvania; I feel as if I will never see them again." 

Tt was a wail that even Kate's philosophy could not stand 
proof against, and in spite of her sternest resolution not to give 
away to her feelings, she, too, succumbed to tears on their de- 
parture. 
21* 



326 <!5lti ^cl^uglfeill scales. 

CHAPTEK II. 

It was early in May when they arrived in southwestern 
Kansas. The country was at its best. The prairie gently un- 
dulating as far as the eye could reach, the broad, flat expanse 
dotted with here and there a knoll that broke the dead mono- 
tone of the vast horizon like a speck against the deep blue sky. 
The spring rains had been abundant; the heather was in bloom; 
the prairie covered with a mass of phlox, hyacinths and pinks, 
and the scrub plums and wild grapes were luxuriantly blossom- 
ing and blowing to and fro in the stiff breezes. 

Davidson met them with a team of white horses and a high, 
green "La Belle" wagon, of which he seemed very proud. After 
fastening and roping their baggage, he told them to "mount 
the seat and hold fast, or, better still, sit on the floor, the wind 
would blow them off, anyway," and the ride, Kate said, was 
"like a sail on an unknown sea." 

The country was not yet staked in sections; there was no 
trail, and the girls suspected David of driving by compass or 
the sun, one gully being so exactly like another, and no visible 
landmarks. Twelve miles were slowly and painfully made 
when a singular figure emerged from a semi-cave in the groimd, 
and was subsequently followed by a group of unkempt, flaxen- 
headed progeny, of all sizes. A woman appeared with a short 
woolen skirt encasing her nether limbs, huge brogans on her 
feet, a knit jacket on her long, lean body, a man's hat on her 
head, and a short pipe between her teeth at which she was 
drawing vigorously. 

"Good morning. Mother Grimshaw," said Davidson, rein- 
ing up. 



©lb Srijimlfeill CTales. 327 



"This is my wife, Mrs Davidson, and her sister, Miss Har- 
leigh. Mother Grimshaw is onr nearest neig'hhor, and I am 
indebted to her for many comforts during my bachelorhood." 

" Shure they were all paid for," said the woman, coming 
forward to shake hands with the ladies. Kindliness and con- 
sternation spread over her somewhat comely bnt weatherbeaten 
features. 

" The Saints purtect ye! " she said, gazing at them, " and 
the good Lord forgive ye for ever bringing the loikes of thim 
to this God-forsaken country," and shaking her fist at David- 
son, she disappeared precipitately down the short ladder into 
the hole in the ground she called home. 

"We are almost there," said David. He pointed with 
pride to the symmetrical stone posts at intervals, which he ex- 
plained marked his claim. 

"Welcome home !" he said, assisting them to alight at the 
foot of the upland. The girls peered about anxiously, but he 
was apparently busy adjusting the harness of his horses. A 
long, low building jutted out from the knoll seemingly a part of 
the hill that formed its support on one side. It was covered on 
its irregular sides and roof with the brown prairie turf that sur- 
rounded it. The only evidences of its being a dwelling were 
the ^\indows and a door, and its chinmey of brick. 

" Is that a sod house ? " queried Kate. Anna's eyes filled 
with tears as she thought of the pretty eastern home with its 
veranda and climbing vines, Davidson twined his arms about 
both of them, and said: 

" ISTever mind, it is the best I can do now, with all the 
stock to buy and seeding to do. Wait until our fall crops are 
in, we will build a frame house for the winter." 



328 ®l^ Sdjiiulkill ^Tnlcs. 



The interior was not as forbiddiiii^' as the outside and ex- 
ceeded their expectations. It was floored throughout, had three 
windows with deep seats in the thick sod walls, and was divided 
into three r(»onis. The center was a large living room with two 
small bedrooms off from it. TIjo rongh sides were whitewashed, 
and the ceiling was made b}' tacking white cotton cloth to the 
rafters and frame that formed the foundation. An attempt 
had been made at rnde furniture, a wooden settle and shelves 
for the housekeeping utensils. The range, organ and rockers 
they had brought from home were in evidence and great care 
had evidently l)een taken to reproduce the home kitchen and 
pantr3\ 

" How hard 3'ou must have worked, David," said Anna. 

"Oh, no, the neighbors helped with the house raising, and 
I installed Mother Grimshaw as factotum to do the unpacking, 
whitewashing and general fixing." 

He neglected, however, to add that he rode for two days to 
the nearest settlement for the windows and lumber and that he 
was lost on the prairies for twenty-four hours. 

"WTien life is young, everything is beautiful and they be- 
gan ranching in high spirits. The stock grazing around, flocks 
of white chickens that settled like a cloud of snow to roost on 
the housetop, even the black jugs in the corral were their de- 
light. During the early summer it rained, the draws were 
full of water and they laid out a garden, planting the seeds 
they brought with them. They would have vines and roses; 
the sod house should be covered wdth them. They also took up 
an adjacent timber claim, ordering trees from a persuasive tree 
iigent to plant in the fall. 

"Ye had best both stay in the house and save yer pretty 



©lb ^fjiiiuHuU (iTalfS. 329 



skins from tlie wind, nothing will groAV anyway," said Mother 
G rimsha w. 

Davidson Avas much away from home. Farming imple- 
ments and high-priced machinery were out of the question with 
individuals. Land was plenty and the farmers planted, ploughed 
and seeded together, the owner of the implements taking his 
pay out of the crops after harvest, and the neighbors united 
tlieir forces and planted more hj working in unison. 

" I think it would be best to plant less and hire a hand or 
two. So many working together do it in such a slipshod way," 
said Anna, one day. 

"You are accustomed to the little patches of the East; 
hoeing Avill be liard enough," said her husband, who was not to 
be argued with. 

He had often dilated on ^' the freedom of living away fi'om 
tlie call of the company's whistle to work, where a man was 
his own masler"; bnt here he rose at four o'clock in the morn- 
ing without any call but the early breezes shadowing the com- 
ing light. Dajdight was reckoned by " Mountain Time " and 
was three-quarters of an lioiir ahead of the sun dial, making it 
a quarter after tb,ree in tiie morning. 

He milked the cows, Anna attended to the milk, which in 
tlie absence of ice they kept in the cyclone cellar under the 
knoll, while Kate prepared breakfast for David and Tommy 
Grimshaw, who was now installed as their chore boy, and also 
put up a substantial luncheon for them to take with them to 
the field. Tlie Imtter, eggs and chickens were their stock in 
trade, and must be attended to every morning. Twice a week 
the " cheeseman " gathered the milk for tlie creamery. He 



330 ©Iti Scl)ugHiiIl (Ealcs. 



came from their nearest market, for their supplies, which he 
paid in groceries. 

How they longed for fresh meat. There was no game but 
the Jack rabbits, which, though considered a delicacy by Eastern 
epicures, no settler would shoot except for sport or as a pest 
to his corn, miich less eat. 

Salt pork and an occasional chicken was their regular 
diet. Of the latter and eggs, they dared not use many or they 
must go without coffee, tea and sugar, if they had none to trade. 
Their home-made preserves and canned fruit were long ago 
exhausted, and nothing grew within a couple of hundred miles 
except the wdld plums and grapes. They planted, but the 
drouth killed everything. 

As midsummer came, the hot winds became insufferable. 
They could not venture out during the day without parched 
hands and face, from which the skin shriveled. "jSTo one could 
take care of their complexions in this heat," said Kate. 

Then the drouth came. The soil was highly productive, 
the wheat was thick and certainly looked beautiful, it would 
yield above the average this year, and their corn crop was im- 
mense. Still there was no rain and Davidson looked thoughtful. 
The work was completed, he was much at home now, but har- 
vesting would soon commence. The heat increased. They had 
been unable to erect a windmill to draw their water, their pump 
had but a two-inch bore which was soon exhausted and the 
cattle were suffering. One lifting yielded but four pails of 
water and this but once an hour. Davidson pumped when not 
at work; during his absence the girls took turns. Tommy had 
all he could do to see that each of the steers got its share in the 



©Ill Sc^uglkill Cales. 331 



wild scramble for the meager supply, which did no more than 
wet their tongues and swollen nostrils. 

The draws along the sections were dry and the fissures in 
them filled with hornless toads, that naturalists say exist without 
water. 

"If we only had those non-drinking cows from France, we, 
too, might make Roquefort cheese for market," remarked Anna. 

Everything that ought not, grew to a phenomenal size. 
Strange vari-colored bugs flew and crawled into everything. 
Spiders vied in growth with young sparrows. The cinch bug 
burrowed in the sod and houses that were guiltless of bedsteads 
were infested with bedbugs. The grasshoppers, their size a jest 
in the East, were a serious problem when they alighted in clouds 
on an object. 

The country was infested with rattlesnakes. The settlers 
held "bees" in the spring, in Avhich days were spent in extermi- 
nating them. The drouth brought them out afresh. There 
were several old wells on the ranch and these were their resort. 
The girls never went out without a forked stick in hand. Kate 
could kill a rattler without a tremor, but Anna ran and shivered. 
Tw^enty were dispatched about the place in one week and still 
they came. 

The garden ^vas dead. What came up of the seeds, that 
the hot winds had not blow^n out of the ground, shrivelled in the 
heat. Each season the early settlers had planted trees, every 
year thicker, but only those set in the waterways that were moist, 
at least in spring, grew at all, and these only attained the height 
of a scrub bush. The corn still looked lusciously green with its 
tasselled tops and ripening ears. The early wheat was cut and 
shocked. But the listless calm that pervaded was ominous. 



332 ©Iti ^cl)iiglkin Cales. 

Then the simoon came. "Could it ever be so hot any- 
where ?" The cattle hung their heads and stood motionless, 
wherever there was the least semblance of shelter. The south 
wind blew with the dawn, at first gently, and then, as the sun 
rose high in the heavens, fiercely, blighting everything in its 
course. The glare was heightened by the filmy cloud of furnace- 
like heat that arose out of the baked and parched earth. 

"Hell is under this spot. Ye can see the smoke rising from 
it." said Daddy Grimshaw. 

"It's six summers I have lived here and every one of thim 
the same. The blight comes just when the crop is ready to be 
tuck in," he added. For three days it blew and then there was 
a lull. Everything hung dead and lifeless. The corn stalks 
were burned as if by fire, the late wheat was crisp, the corn 
roasted black on the ear and the melons, which thirsty Kansians 
prize as a summer beverage instead of iced drinks, were as if 
cooked on the shrivelled vines. 

Davidson, anxious to appear hopeful, said, "We have not 
fared so badly. I did not expect to ship much this year and the 
wheat in shock may turn out well." 

A tornado came next, plenty of wind but little water. It 
was in the evening and they spent the night in the cyclone cave. 
The huge chimney of their humble dwelling blew down, carry- 
ing ruin and devastation with it. The lowly huts of the settlers 
did not suffer much but the cattle in the march of destruction 
were killed. "Coos," one of their faithful milch cows, was 
found almost severed in two, a part of a sewing machine im- 
bedded in her vitals. This, with other debris, had blown from 
IS^ess, their distant county seat, which was almost a total ruin. 
Business blocks, a new fifty-thousand dollar-school building. 



®lb Scfiitslkill Cales. 333 

hotels and dwellings, erected by Eastern speculators to force 
a boom, all were razed to the ground and many deaths resulted. 

"I had hoped to build the frame dwelling this fall, but 
owing to the failure of the crops, I am afraid we "will have to 
content ourselves with a sod house for the winter," said 
Davidson. 

"I could do it by selling some of th^ steers." 

He did not add that he feared that tlie steei-s might be 
needed to save them from starvation. 

A new sod house was built nearer the cyclone cave. The 
chimney must be rebuilt in any event and the cattle have shelter 
during the winter, they could not live in the fierce prairie 
winds. The old house was dismantled of its windows, doors 
and floors, and made weather tight for the cattle. To the new 
one these with a few couA^eniences were added. A long low 
parapet of sod was built to break the force of the wind and 
all was secure for the winter, which soon came in all its fury. 

There was little or no snow. The wind either blew it to 
the far off mountain peaks or it melted as it reached the ground. 
The sod house half burrowed under the knoll was warm. There 
was no wood within seventy miles and they could as well afford 
to burn silver as coal, but fuel was plenty of a kind. The corn 
on the ear was thrown into the corral for the pigs. They were 
of the black, long snouted, razor-back, wild breed, ready to chew 
up anything from a human being to an ear of corn and they 
cleared the cobs in their rapacious maws. They were fed at 
alternate ends of the corral. Whilst Tommy, pole in hand for 
defense, engaged their attention with a fresh supply at one end, 
Davidson would clamber in at the other and fill his bags with the 
cobs. These with the burnt corn fodder and "cowchips" formed 



334 ©It) Sd^uglktU SEales. 



their fuel and engaged the attention of one person constantly 
to feed the fire. They did not arise with or before the work- 
ingman's whistle now, but courted daylight no matter how 
many wakeful hours intervened between dusk and dawn. 

There was no work to do but attend the stock, and the 
family needed but two meals a day and these were painfully 
stereotyped, cornmeal and bacon. They seemed but to live on 
with no object in life but existence. Reading matter, however, 
from Eastern friends was plentiful, and this kept them in touch 
with the outer Avorld. Twice a week Davidson went to the 
cross roads post office and the cheeseman still called for an 
exchange of supplies. 

CHAPTER III 

Life was not without its concomitant variety as winter 
went on apace. Insurance agents, tree peddlers, and specu- 
lators made of their house a wayfaring hotel. They were only 
too pleased to have the dread monotony broken by these casual 
guests. An itinerant minister, not of their creed, from the 
Mission Church in Pueblo, preached at the ranch and among the 
neighbors, once in two weeks. ]\frs. Davidson played the 
organ and led the hymns for the sparse congregation. When 
services were held elsewhere they took the instrument with them 
in the wagon to the next place. Then a Roman Catholic 
Missionary Priest came too. He put up with the Davidsons and 
asked if he might erect an altar and hold mass there for the 
three families that lived in dugouts in that vicinity. Davidson 
had frequently met the zealous and pious man iii his travels 
across the prairies on a little sorrel pony with his saddle bags 
filled with the orders of his holy office and medicines for the sick 



©Ill Scf)ustkill QTalcs. 335 

and afHicted. Tliey acquiesced. "Anything to help uplift 
humanity/' said Anna. The Grimshaws, whom their mother 
described as, "Worse nor South-say islanders;" not without 
incipient rebellion on their part, together with a few adults and 
their numerous broods were thus, on stated occasions, initiated 
into the formula of their church; and time went on. 

A strange looking being came over the prairie one evening 
in the twilight. A tall broad-shouldered man, with long curl- 
ing ringlets and flowing beard of blonde hair. His garb was 
nondescript and picturesque; he wore no hat, simply a kerchief 
tied about his neck and in his hand a large shepherds' crook. 

''Here comes Schlatter, the Divine healer," called Kate, 
Avho was at the window. 

The stranger made the sign of the cross as he entered the 
house and held up a small tablet with pencil attached; he appar- 
ently was dumb. He asked "for shelter for the night." 

The girls roomed together and his host took the settle 
behind the stove, where he slept the half of the time to replenish 
the fire. In the morning the stranger invoked a blessing on the 
meal and all within the house. As he took his coffee he stirred 
it and looked about anxiously for the sugar they could not afford 
to use themselves and did not offer him. iVfter breakfast he 
again invoked a blessing on th.e house and its inmates and 
departed. He had not gone far before Mrs. Davidson came 
hurri-edly for Davison to follow liim. "He has taken your full 
set of red flannels, chest protector and all, that hung on the line 
in that room," said she. 

"He had them on then, he had no bundle when he left," 
said her husband. 



336 ©ItJ Scf)imlkill 9Ealcs. 



"Cannot you ride and catch him; they are all you have to 
change in?" 

"Poor devil^ it is cold, let him have them," said David- 
son, Avatching the rapidly disappearing "Healer." 

Anna's health was not good and a new source of anxiety 
presented itself. One balmy, clear day, Kate said: "The wind 
is only fitfnl, let us take a walk like we used to at home. We 
will go over to the timber claim and see if the wind has left 
any trees." They dressed with extra care and took a basket 
with them, with a few large stones in it in case they would 
be needed to ballast the young trees. On their return the 
spirit of frugality being strong in Kate, she piled the basket 
high with "cow chips" which were plentiful in that direction. 
A team and surrey approached and the gentleman within raised 
his high silk hat to the ladies. 

"What shall I do with the basket f said Kate, "soto voce." 

"Drop it, you goose; he has not seen it," replied Anna. 
But Kate perverse as usual, still held on to it. "Can you tell 
me, ladies, where Mr. Davidson lives? I was informed at 
Pueblo that he might accommodate me for the night." 

"I am his wife," said Anna, drawing herself up to her full 
height. "It is but a short distance. I have no doubt but that 
my husband will be pleased to see you." 

The evening was pleasantly spent, v/ith cards, music and 
conversation. Banker Angel 1 was making a tour of that part of 
the country to look after the bank's investments in mortgages 
on the farms. "It is a poor country, hereabouts, sir," he said. 
"I advise you to get out of it as soon as possible, you are outside 
of the rain belt, Mr. Davidson," and he looked pityingly at the 
unconscious ladies. David merely shook his head. 



<©Iti Scf)usliull iTalcs. 337 



Kate Ava* re-trim mina- an old hat. "J.et me trim it for you," 
said the banker. 

"As if a man knew anything about trimming a hat," joked 
Kate. 

In the morning there were hasty "good-byes" and a '"warm 
invitation to come again." Kate took up the hat and in the 
velvet bow found a crisp ten dollar bill deftly knotted in. Anna 
was inclined to be indignant but Kate said, "Not at all. We 
will use it. We wall send to Chicago for a whole ready made 
wardrobe and we need worry no more. But do not tell David." 

Kate did not add that she feared he might want the money 
for some of the urgent needs of the farm. 

Spring came and with it the new born babe, a girl. Fragile 
and quiet, with a gravity on lier tiny, puckered features that 
augured that the anxieties of the situation were not unknown to 
lier, but that they Averc inculcated in her little being from her 
very conception. 

"Let us call her Marguerite, for she is like unto a flower," 
said Anna, and Davidson assented. 

Already the spring tunnoil was in full blast. He had little 
time to think of anything else. Anna was very delicate and 
Kate assumed all her cares but the infant. Cooking, milking, 
baking, feeding the poultry, gathering the eggs, butter making, 
and the chores that the men could not perform. It still rained 
<K3casionally, and the draws relieved her from watering the 
cattle. 

The grind went on; Davidson felt they must make a suc- 
cess of it this year. They rose with the flrst shadoAv of dawn, 
working until dusk, when they crawled into bed, exhausted, 
seldom lighting a lamp. There was little time to read. Anna 



338 ©It ^djugmill (JTaks. 



sometimes would try to alond, when she nursed the puny baby 
and Kate churned. 

David became moody and morose. He would talk of 
nothing but "the exorbitant rates of freight, grasping coi^ora- 
tions, and the necessity of the Government purchasing the rail- 
roads. The farmer would then get living prices for his farm 
products, without the lecherous monopolies sucking the life's 
blood out of the fruits of his toil.'" He talked well, and men 
came miles to hear him after their day's work. But the girls 
were beginning to dread these rampant flights, verging as they 
were with some of the most unruly, toward socialism and 
anarchy. They were on the eve of a national election and 
party feeling ran high. 

"The reapers will be here day after tomorrow," he said 
one morning. 

"So soon," said Anna. "I believe the torrid wave will come 
before they do. I can see it in the baby. She scarcely seems to 
breathe." 

Davidson muttered something that sounded very like a 
smothered curse and went out slamming the door. 

How the girls hated the coming of that ill-kempt gang,^ 
honest toilers of the soil though they were. One of them, even 
a college professor, who had settled there, partly for his health, 
and came filled with enthusiasm for the irrigation of the south- 
west. There were no rivers in that section to draw^ the supply 
of water from, for the sluices which the settlers laid and after 
exhausting all his and some of his neighbor's available funds, 
and some too of Davidson's scanty dollars in the vain endeavor 
to turn a small stream, thirty miles away, thitherward and in 
building dams to hold the rainwater, that never fell, he gave up 



©Itj Scf)uglkill ^Taks. 339 



the vain attempt. The girls had never seen him, but heard that 
he fed the steam thresher as well in the fierce heat, as if he had 
never heard of anything else. 

These men worked hard and were voracious eaters. Bread 
must be baked in quantities, and unless they wanted to sizzle 
fried pork for hours they must boil off several shoulders to 
eat cold. 

'' If you can attend to the bread, Anna, after I am through 
churning, I will go for some wild plums and we will make a 
batch of pies, it will save us other cooking," said Kate. 

She was gone some time, the bread was ready for the 
stove, the pie crust being deftly turned in Anna's nimble 
fingers. 

How did it all happen ? Kate heard a slight scream and 
then a moan ; she ran and then stood spellbound at the door. 

Anna stood motionless before her babe, one hand still 
full of the dough uplifted before her face, the other holding 
the babe as far from her in her cradle as she could. Suspended 
from the ceiling, from between the muslin folds, hung a huge 
rattlesnake. It had given the ominous rattle and the work was 
done. The poor woman stood as if entranced, gazing at the 
beady eyes and basilisk head of the swaying reptile. 

It was but a moment, but that moment seemed a lifetime 
to Kate, who grasped the forked stick that stood at the door and 
brought the snake to the floor, his head between the prongs 
and dispatched it. In that moment it flashed through lior mind 
that Anna had said "there were rattlers about again, she had 
heard them." They had lodged in the roof of the sod house. 

Anna had fainted and Tommy in response to Kate's cries 
ran for his mother, who was working in one of their fields with- 



340 ©Iti ^d)iigUuU STalrs. 



in hailing distance. They carried her to bed and discovered a 
tiny puncture in the dough covered hand which they tenderly 
washed. The poison was already spreading and Kate cauterized 
the wound under Anna's own direction. They had often to- 
gether studied the treatment from medical works. Tommy 
was dispatched for her husband, on their best farm horse, and 
Kate not knowing where the reapers were at work, was doubt- 
ful as to whether she should go to Pueblo for the Doctor or 
wait for her brother-in-law. She could not leave. Mrs. Grim- 
shaw, who essayed the baking and boiling to completion, in- 
sisted on dosing the patient with whiskey until, as Anna her- 
self said, " She could no longer see." 

The long day wore on, she grew no better, the poison had 
spread to her arm and was affecting her system. The opportune 
arrival of the "cheeseman" on his rounds, seemed providen- 
tial to the half-crazed watcher. He inspected the arm of the 
patient and suggested remedies that were at once applied, but 
privately told Mrs. Grimshaw that " she was too weakly to 
fight blood poisoning." He went back at once to the Professor, 
who owned the best horse in the neighborhood, and happened 
to be at home that day nursing his eyes, burned in the fierce 
heat of threshing the day before. The Professor went to Hayes, 
a nearer point, for the Doctor, but neither he nor Davidson 
arrived before night fall. 

The Doctor, a dissolute fellow, an excellent, practitioner 
when sober, was just finishing off a hard case of drink and 
seemed helpless. He ordered a few simple applications for the 
poor patient, who was suffering intensely, and then retired to 
the kitchen to gorge his abnormal appetite on the cold meat 
and pies prepared for the threshers on the morrow, and slept. 

" If he was only sober enough to take off her arm," sobbed 
Kate, " perhaps it would save her life." 

All night they kept their lone vigil with the dying woman. 
At intervals she was conscious. She spoke of home, Father, 
Mother,, and friends of her childhood. Then visions of the 



©Ill ^djuolktU SEalcs. 341 



" dear, dear " old Pennsylvania mountains pictured themselves 
in her disordered fancv. How beautiful the green trees looked, 
how fresh the air and how sweet the dew. Ever and anon she 
dipped her hot hands in the imaginarv silverv mountain brook 
and tried to lave her parched temples with the cooling waters. 

Her husband sat as one dazed at the foot of the bed. The 
babe wailed in its feeble way as though it was conscious of the 
loss it was about to sustain. Mrs. Grimshaw recited the prayers 
for the dying, whih^ the Professor kept watch in the doorway. 

Suddenly at micbiiglit she sat up; Kate hold her head on 
her shoulder. 

''Bring my babe, poor waif, you will not be long after me," 
she said. "I am glad I can go home. I could not live here. 
Bury me with my face toward the East, from whence the Son of 
God will come in all His glory, when the last trump shall sound 
and the grave give up its dead.'' 

''Good-bye" , "God Bless! " 

"My wife ! Say that you forgive me for this," cried the 
sorrow-stricken husband. 

But the voice had ceased, the tired hands were folded 
across her bosom, the pure spirit had fled to its Maker. 

Davidson drove to Pueblo in the early dawn for the casket. 
"Bring a large plain pine box," said Kate. 

"Thim ready made caskets is too small for a gro\\m per- 
son," said Mother Grimshaw. "Eve helped to lay out a good 
many in thim since I've been liei'e, and the crowdiii' of thim is 
awful. The coffin makers must think we Ix'long to them 
'pigmies,' the little fairy ])e()])le of Arizony." 

Together they dressed her in her pretty grey cashmere 
gown with the neat white collar and cuffs. Her face was not 
much discolored, her never-failing smile calm and peaceful. 

Davidson I'etunied about four in the afternoon with the 
large plain ])ine box in the wagon, while beside it on horse- 
back rode the Priest, who came to ])ay his last tribute to a loved 
friend and ofttiiue hostess. 



342 ©Iti ScJ}uslktn SEaleg. 



It Avas summer; there were no preserving influences at 
hand for the poor body. She must be buried at nightfall. They 
took her soft, white, blue-bordered blankets to line the box, and 
gently laved her between them, covering her with the fleecy 
folds. 

The cheesman had spread the sad story on his rounds, and 
the settlers came from far and near. As far north as the creek, 
forty miles away, to Hayes, thirty miles south. People they 
had never seen, but felt united to through the common bond 
of neighborhood and sympathy. They came afoot, on horse- 
back and in the prairie vehicle, the high-backed wagon. The 
men with their swarthy unshaven faces, with great beards, 
their skins burned a bronze red that stamped them with as dis- 
tinct a type as the Arabians of the desert. The women, their 
huge sunbonnets flapping in the wind, the same influence that 
dried their baked and parchment-like skins, seemed to have 
warped their lives. 

All wore the same listless, dejected air as if death to them 
was "but the parting of a breath," a laying down of the burden, 

Tonmiy, who had killed the mate of the dread reptile, draw- 
ing it from a crevice in the roof and exhibited the rattlers and 
skins, was listened to eagerly as he told and retold the horrible 
story. Kate brought the infant to the Priest who performed 
the simple rite of baptism at the side of the mother's cofiin, be- 
fore they wended their way to the cemetery. 

The cortege proceeded to the hillside, as the sun went 
down, Davidson driving and Kate, Mother Grimshaw and the 
Priest steadying the box, while the mournful procession fol- 
lowed. 

"I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord; he 
that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, 
and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die," read 
the Priest from the ritual. But the beautiful service fell, like 
the cold clods on hearts that were dead to its influence. 

The beloved remains were lowered into the ground. They 



®lt) Scl^uglkill STaks. 343 



heard a sliont. A Mag"on approached over the prairie. It was 
I ho Professor waving his hat to attract attention. He asked 
the assistance of the men to nnload some stone slabs which he 
had. quarried himself, some twenty miles awav. 

"The gophers and coyotes will dig into any grave without 
these," he said. 

They placed the small stones upright about the coffin, and 
covered the w^alls thus made with the slabs. Then they united 
in the Lord's Prayer, the Priest and Mother Grimshaw kneel- 
ing beside the grave, and all was over. 

The next dav the reapers came, and Kate followed the 
beaten path with a blurring in her ears and a mist before her 
eyes. Davidson was .taciturn, avoiding her and the child, seem- 
ing to find his only solace in the work and the men, 

Tlie sultryness increased. The sun for days seemed to rise 
out of the baked earth like a huge ball of fire, shedding scintil- 
lating sparks from the disc of its lurid globe as it rose high in 
the heavens. Painstorms came up all about them, they could 
see them at every point on the blank horizon, some mirages, no 
doubt, but not a drop of water fell on the "Dead Man's Foot." 
One morning it seemed as if neither men nor cattle could live 
if the hot wind did not soon subside. 

Marguerite lay in her cradle. She had not moaned since 
the simoon came. Her eyelids fluttered a little when Kate 
urged her to take her milk. There Avas a faint tremor and then 
deathly quiet. She lifted the little form and carried her to 
the door. It was vain ; she was dead. Laying her gently on the 
bed and covering her over, she went about the Avork saying 
again and again, "It is better so. She is with her mother. 
But oh ! my little darling," amid the sobs she could not restrain, 

No one would be home until evening. The chores finished, 
she washed and dressed the tiny mite in her prettiest vliit^' dre-s. 
She took her mandolin box, lined it with an old white and blue 
dress of her own, making of it a bassinet in which she laid the 
babe in her waxen-like purity, an angel now indeed. In the 
evening they buried her in the same grave with her mother. 



344 (ilti Scf}iislkill (Ealcs. 



The next day Kate told Davidson lie must attend to the 
chores. She took Tommy to Pueblo with the team, returning 
with a large plain white marble slal) with the names of mother 
and child inscribed on it. The grave was dug into a foot or 
two and filled with stones as a farther precaution against wild 
beasts and the headstone set. Kate told the bereaved husband 
"her w^ork here was complete. She would leave for home the 
week following." 

A team, one morning, drove up to the door and from it 
emerged Professov jMerton, cleanly shaven and with more at- 
tention than usual bestowed on his rough-and-ready attire. 

What ! Are you going too ?" asked Davidson, looking 
dazed. A blush overspread the professor's tan-beaten features, 
but there was a merry twinkle in the eyes behind the blue 
goggles. 

"Yes, but not to the Keystone State, where Kate tells me 
she has secured her old school again, but somewhere never to get 
out of sight of water again. Driving a street sprinkling cart 
may satisfy me. 

"I have tried for years to sell my place. jSTo one has the 
money to buy. I had the cattle driven over here and closed the 
door of the ranch. Tf there is anything over there you want, 
help yourself. I will never come back." 

The lonely grief stricken man leaned on the gate post, 
his eyes so blinded with tears he could not see their extended 
hands. 

"I will never leave her," he said pointing to the cemetery. 
"I brought her here against her will. I will never leave until 
they lay me beside her." 

A professor's chair in mathematics, in a college near 
Chicago. A pretty vine-covered cottage in full view of Lake 
^Michigan, the professor's home ; his wife a cheery faced woman ; 
Merton and Kate with whom the reader is well acquainted ; 
is the sequel of the story of the "Dead Man's Foot." 

[The End.] 



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